in this dysfunctional, failed, political system. i understand this has been done before, but with respect to senator simpson, i never seen people so angry. i speak around the country. whether it is a blue state or read state, people want a change, and one way to change it is to get rid of the electoral college. host: jonathan turleywe did nots democratically pictures another comment coming in from twitter. victor writes -- i support the electoral college. let us hear from fox al on our line for independents. hello. caller: i agree with jonathon turley, we are supposed to be a democratic republic. and this is called democracy one hand power to a group where we do not know how they get in

power. no one knows anything about the electoral college except it controls who gets elected. that was invented before there was even a mass communication. even back then, many people like james madison thought it was a mistake not to go to a popular election. many arguments made for the electoral college reducing arguments made for the election of united states senators by united states legislature. we got rid of that in 1913 with the 17th amendment. it worked pretty well. most citizens today would find it bizarre not to be able to directly elect their senators. it is even more important to do that in terms of electing a president. i think we got it in reverse. at the 17th amendment was correct. what we should have started as

to whether direct election of the president. represent all of america. host: falls church, virginia. on our line for republicans. caller: i happen to agree with the senator. i think the electoral college gives protection to the modern state. i hear your point, too. and there's a concern there. one. have always had, and i never hear anyone talk about this. has there ever any been studies or thoughts about -- i do not know about doing it by county, if you have a state like florida were different counties but different ways, at least your vote doesn't get completely thrown out. and maybe there is more fairer presentation that way. he could speak to that i would appreciate that. host: she was talking about

giving votes to a burrow, region. guest: the most obvious alternative is for states to enact a system in which electoral votes are divided to reflect the vote and the state. this is a simple and correct approach. in florida, which almost divides right down the middle, people who go to the polls will say, ok, i know that my vote is going to count. if we divide down the middle, half of our electoral votes will go to this candidate, have to the other. that is a reasonable thing to do. it does not take as heavy lifting as a constitutional amendment. detective. the legislature ends a stop this nonsense. we want to go that route of maine, nebraska, create a non- winner takes all approach. vote at everyone's a b

counts. as a step that is something is doable in most states. host: the washington post as a story -- it talks about how even the new hampshire as four approached college votes from the candidates are interested in what is happening there. you are left with a story or you are sick, yes, it just turns out that in this case you of small states like -- most of thean time is a large states. people ignore that the of rowboats are divided according to population. people think that -- people ignore the fact that these states are divided according to population. california, texas have more votes. the electoral college is divided so that it -- 100 senators plus

the three electors from d.c. it is already weighted towards have the states in terms of population. host: george on our line for democrats. hello. caller: again, the reason the electoral college was established is our founding fathers as bright and democratic as they were did not trust the population. as i just mentioned, the senators were not elected until after the turn of the century. and as far as the electoral college protecting the smaller states, well, let us be honest, new hampshire and iowa basically sets the presidential candidates. it is really hard if you lose. it is very, very difficult.

they have bounced back. i do not recall who. i. bush did, and a couple others. but the electoral college is really elitist. host: we will leave it there. to that is accurate. many thought that citizens could not be responsible for making these decisions. he and my view, james madison, was the most brilliant and a brilliant class of voters. he did create a representative democracy. he thought this was the one area where you wanted popular both security supported the senate election by state. he wanted to see popular elections and the compromised on it. and i think that the point is a good one. those people who wanted this -- it was a compromise between slavery and non-slavery. there's a strong elitism. that time has really past.

now their argumentation systems that our framers never could imagine. more importantly, this is a person that can take us toward -- he can order our sons and daughters to go into combat. he can take us through terrible economic crisis. that person needs. the court's legitimacy of a american voting for him as an american. there's no greater thing we can create shorter of embracing a direct voting as do other major nations around the world. host: jonathon turley, our twitter followers says -- no allowed for college spells doom for sparsely populated right wing states. guest: that is a popular myth. people say it is one to be about the main population centers, california will control -- california is almost two states. there's a huge number of

conservatives in california that come very close in that state every single year. thay have elected republican governors. all of those votes are wiped out. if you are republican in california, your vote is wiped out. if you let them both as americans, there is going to be a sizable number of conservative votes that will go for presidential candidates. people ignore and a close election 100,000 votes in a state like kansas. or utah. you are not going to forget those. it is going to be a scramble to get those votes. right now they are all being ignored. people seem to think that these candidates are running fight small states like kansas and wyoming. they are not. host: washington post as looking at their predictions for the electoral votes. at this point in 2012, electoral both productions, it gives the states and read better

expected to go republican. the ones in blue, a democrat. and the other is the leading states. jonathon turley, george washington university law school. let us go to washington on our line for independents, you are on. caller: professor i fully agree with you. i live in a state that is one of the ones you are talking about california. i am in washington state. and four years ago, as i watched the returns, right as there were closing, they called the election. and what this made me wonder is, let us stay that in my state which is considered to be blue, we end up having an extremely low turnout by democrats, and if you had done a popular vote count, it would of had a different outcome, this is my concern. my final point is, i feel like we on the west coast will not have any real serious attention paid to us until we start to turn purple.

guest: that is a very good point. i believe the electoral college is one of the reasons for the low levels of voting. people are rational. they are in a state that they know are going to go republican or democrat even though they may be on the other side and they do not see the value of going. becomes something like kabookie. when you are voting for the president and you know you are not. if you are in wyoming and went to vote for obama, it has the same significance of opening up your car window and yelling at dow. each american should feel that their vote has been heard and registered. if that happens, you will see more people voting. right now people live in a dysfunctional political system. the majority of us do not like what is happening in this country. we have a broken, dysfunctional political system. most of us believe that these parties are strangling the life out of this country. if we are being told there's

nothing you can do about it. this is the monopoly of power. the electoral college will never be removed. that would be a truly depressing reality if we are left with these two parties and these stories is in this system that is working so badly. host: stephen wright's on twitter -- what are the steps to change from the electoral college to a popular vote. would you recommend incremental change. were boroughs, counties or regions. both spirit or would do switch it altogether. guest: we did it once. is not what we had never been successful. i know what senator simpson is saying. would appoint him to 1913. we did it once. those citizens were heard. and insisted on directly electing senators. we can do it again. we have passed constitutional amendments. we get the same time pushed our politicians and are given states

to get away from this ridiculous winner takes all approach. and pass straight laws requiring the division of electoral votes according to the actual vote of citizens. host: maryland, darryl, on our line for republicans. caller: if there's no electoral college, every time the election was close, it would be in national recount. if we think the recount in florida was a debacle in 2000, imagine whenever it was within 1 million or 2 million votes, the majority vote. we would have a national recount that occurred in every single state. i would like to make the point that we are actually in nation of individual states. so, when we vote in our state, the majority gets to say how our state, to our state wants to be left for president. so majority vote state-by-state

-- not on the national level because it would cause problems like i just said -- host: thank you. guest: i think that is simply wrong. right now we end up in court. we end up in court all of the time. did we miss the bush-bork debacle. we end up in court. there will be less likelihood with direct popular voting. the closest races like the bush- gore race was separated by 500,000 votes. that was a super close election. were unlikely to overturn the results of a popular vote. you look historically, there have not been disagreement about who won the popular vote. people liked bush was elected not by only lesson 50% of the public, but in that case, by a vote of the electoral college that did not reflect the

outcome. the question of what people wanted -- if you go to national voters -- would there be a national recount? of course not. you can still have a recount of there is some allegation. but that is what you currently have. the difference is is that it is unlikely that the given state is going to turn the election. when you go to the larger, national election, it is really not often in doubt. there will be no difference in challenges. host: let us take a look at the presidents who have been elected with less than 50% of the popular vote. john quincy adams. also, abraham lincoln. james garfield and grover cleveland, elected twice having less than 50% of the vote. woodrow wilson elected twice about half of the popular supporting him. john kennedy, bill clinton, and george w. bush.

guest: the way that our politics works now is we are likely to have a president not elected by the majority of citizens in this country. ketcham bother all of us. george bush faced that -- that should bother all of us. al gore have more americans saying we want to have this person as our leader. and i want to note also, for our last caller, i am a huge advocate of federalism. i have been a huge advocate my entire career. you are talking about someone who believes fervently in states' rights. is not about federalism. it makes no difference in terms of states' rights. it protects two monopoly parties from controlling our government and our politics. host: rick joins us from florida on our line for democrats. caller: good morning. have you and the electoral college?

what is the procedure in place? as of have to be done for the states or with the congress? guest: you have a two choices. one is to go ahead and push congress for a constitutional amendment. and this should be up to the american people, not up to these two parties. to pressure representatives and say, quite frankly, i am not concerned about your desire to keep the current system. we believed the american people should be given this choice. if they do not, you can call a constitutional convention which many people are calling any way to deal with the problems that we have a promise broken down political system. the easiest way is to go to congress. it cannot get an amendment -- or in the short term, you can get your representative and demand that they get rid of the winner takes all approach. under the constitution, each state sets the rules for how these a lot through college votes are calibrated. what you have to do is you ought

to go to your politicians and demand that they not do this winner takes all approach. and that when you look for college votes are recorded to washington -- then the reflect the rough division of your state. so that everyone's votes at least indirectly counts. host: on twitter, can you put it in terms of north and southern states? guest: it has made most was a cool and that we are all affected nonentities. it is that none of this matter except unless you are an four or so states. those voters will control the presidential election. there is a north, south division. because of the transportation, the communication technologies that we have, there are sizeable pockets in deeply read and deeply blue states, people from the other parties. they are treated as non entities

as well. the best way to deal with that is to have all of their votes count. it will have a tremendous effect on getting candidates to argue to the entire nation. right now you have most of the campaign focusing on issues relevant to colorado, florida and a couple other states. host: fort lauderdale on our line for independents, tony. caller: this is really interesting. i wish you had an online class or something. i agree with you on so many levels. host: tell us why, tony. caller: if you have a nationwide election, you are overturning the system that is set up of house elected by the people come a senate appointed by the legislature. and the 17th amendment -- that has worked wonderfully, hasn't it?

and the president elected by the state's. the second thing is, you have voter fraud to take up much larger role to take in our election. i could get thousands of votes and affect other states, the corruption in my state. any mention in the majority rules. -- and you mention that majority rules. italy probably hasn't had a government above 50% and a last 50 years. i fundamentally disagree. i just cannot see it. i think it is a convenient argument that academics puts up.

host: thank you. i will at a tweet from roy. if we expand the electoral college we will have many president elected with less than a majority. guest: no. first of all, tony, nicolas sarkozy just lost because he did not get 50% of the vote. worked very well in countries like france. a runoff guaranteed that will have a more than 50% of the vote. under a system of direct popular voting, with a runoff a week for two later, you are always guaranteed to get over 50% of the vote. so, the point is that, the third-party -- one of the points that many of us want to see, more choices for the public. you will have that if you get rid of the electoral college. that is a good thing. i do not -- you may be happy

with what you are seeing. you may be happy with having just two choices and a monopoly of power and this echo chamber that you have. to be happy with the government where most of the american people rejected, has a 17% popularity rate. are you happy with that? continue with that. to get rid of the electoral college, he will change the dynamic. you will have the american people of voting as american spirit also want to know, the problems associated with a corrupt political structure in one state is more magnified under the electoral college. because, it is more important if you are going to rig collection to do it right now. do it in florida and have all the votes go for one candidate. d vote nationally, and actually did uses the power of parties. it diffuses the power of the given state spirit and more importantly, we have got to watch for that type of voter fraud now and we will do its with the popular vote.

it is the same phenomenon. host: our last call is ken in kansas. caller: good morning. i wanted to reiterate what i heard a moment ago. that i think fraud would be increased if we got rid of the electoral college. i am from kansas. i can find a whole lot more republicans here in kansas that are now voting purity is right about that. but i think we can also understand how we can find more fraudulent kinds of votes. we can go to graveyards. and have more and more voter turnout. and not so sure that the quality of the collection is necessarily enhanced by the number of people who turn out either. getting rid of the electoral college would encourage that. i do not think that is necessarily a plus. guest: what i would say is that on the voter fraud issue, by allowing winner takes all in a given state to encourage more

voter fraud. because this -- there is more its stake to turn all of the votes of illinois over to one candidate. the fraud is the same terms of getting electoral votes and the wrecked votes. we have federal laws in place to combat voter fraud. i am from chicago i lived through that. there was a lot of fraud. we have laws designed to deal with that. i would suggest for those listening, did not presume criminal, not as the reason not to allow you to vote directly for the president of the united states. criminal conduct is addressed through criminal laws and voter laws. host: jonathon turley, a professor at george washington university law school. is the founder and extend the director of the projects for older prisoners. thank you for coming in and talking with us about the electoral college. coming up next, america by the

numbers. we will look at trends in employee wages and benefits. we will be right back. ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> c-span is asking middle and high school students to send a message to the president that is part of this year's student can video documentary competition. will answer the question -- what is the most important issue the president should consider in 2013? for the grand prize of $5,000. there are 50,000 hours in total prize is available.

the video competition is open to students in grades 6 through 12. goc online to am.org. -- studentcam.org. >> it has been there since 1947, the founding year of the country. it shows and films from all over the world from the united states, from england, from bollywood in india. to me, it symbolized the resilience of the country and the openness of the country in spite of all of the violence and trouble that people who suffered over the last many decades and pakistan. and during one of the protests against a video that insulted the prophet muhammed, during a those protests, they turned to movie theaters and burned them. i do not really see that as a protest against the west. i cannot see that as a protest

against the united states even now avatar was one of the movies you could have gone to see at this theater. you had islamist activists who had not like these movie theaters for decades. way before this profit mohammed film that was never shown any way. so they grabbed an opportunity to attack. and whipped up a bunch of young people. there were teenagers involved . faced teenagerssodas from the snack bar on the way -- teenagers stall sodas from the snack bar on the way to torch the movie theater. perhaps they did not understand. i say that with the greatest respect. to my dismay with your country is about? i do know from having studied the history, from having to listen to pakistanis themselves from it is an incredibly diverse place. it was born as an even more diverse place than it is today.

lots of different cultures. lots of different traditions, ways to be. that movie theater symbolized caucus gone. that is what people burned when they set on fire. >> more with the author and npr host sunday at 8:00 p.m. on c- span 2 and a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our america by the number segment this week looks at wages and also benefits. we are joined by bill wiatrowski, the associate commissioner at the bureau of labor statistics. thank you for being here. we are also joined by christopher flavelle, policy analyst at bloomberg government. information we just got, wages and benefits of american workers up 70% -- 7% go to wages, 30 percent and go to benefits. -- 70% go to wages. 30% go to benefits.

guest: we get information on what they are spending on wages and benefits. we look at a wide variety of benefits including health and other assurances, retirement benefits and cost of a legally required benefits, the cost employers pay for medicare taxes, unemployment insurance, things like that. the proportion that those were benefits ishas risen a little bit in recent years. we have data that show increases prior to the recession were quite a bit larger than that. certainly, most recessions we see wage increase slow. host: we are seeing employees of greater responsibility for their benefits than ever. what does this end up looking like and feeling like for employees? guest: it means that although

they are getting more from their employer, they may see it as not in the pocket. especially but health care. it is the big gobbler of money coming from employees but not to employees. it is said that the cost of health care benefits went up almost 100% in the last 10 years. it is hard to see room for wage increases. host: we see a headline in "usa today" today. it says job benefits are growing faster than wages. you mentioned cash in your pocket as a dynamic. guest: the big debate in this campaign is health care. and every employer is saying this in terms of how they meet payroll and their demands for employees. the question is, where does it go? some degrees in the annual rise in premiums. this new health care law signed

by obama -- is it bringing down that growth? host: we are talking about wages and benefits. if you'd like to join our conversation -- republicans can call -- 202-585-3881. democrat -- 202-585-3880. and independent -- 202-585-388 2. looking at a price chart of how dollars are spent. which you mentioned earlier that 70% goes to wages. there's a breakdown of other benefits that come into play. bill wiatrowski. guest: will get a wide variety of things. some are cash related. like time off benefits. how much time employees got off and holidays, sick time. and what is but crossing the employer. we also look of one category recall supplemental perrpay. things like bonuses.

receive a bigger chunks and the pie our entrances. that would be health insurance being the largest portion of that. and legally required benefits. what employers are spending for their medicare premiums and social security taxes. host: we have on the line john joining us from missouri. caller: you caught me by surprise. i was expecting to get on this quickly. i wanted to speak about basic wages for the last 30 years for people less than medium in,. has really stayed flat for 30 years. and people talk about how we have this class welfare going on. about two or three weeks ago, they came out with a list of the top 400 wealthiest people in the united states. and that total wealth totaled

about 1.5 trillion dollars. which is basically 10% of the national debt. it seems so strange that 400 people can have that much money, and wages for the rest of the country have just been basically flat for 30 years. i would like an answer on that please. host: go ahead. guest: our survey looks the changes and what employers are spending on wages. in recent numbers, they are averaging below 2%. irving last 10 years, they had just kept pace with inflation and not seen large increases. the caller is correct. we show variation by different occupation groups. one example that i am showing you, certain production and service and construction workers

are having lower wage increases and then you see for office and professional workers. there's some wide variation across occupation. host: with the changes, private industry and state and local government. you can see their the 12 month percentage change an employer cost. private is in red. state and local government in a blow. we are seeing a difference. guest: one of the things you options with government workers is that the trends you might see coming into a recession lags a little bit for state and government workers. you can see red line that it dropped quite quickly in 2007, 2008, 2009. the government line stuck a little longer before they started to decline. by uc wage increases have been particularly low. these are the lowest numbers we have seen since about 30 years.

you hear about state governments especially having a lot of fiscal problems, having to lay off workers and provide no wage increases. we are demonstrating that. in recent years, which increases have been about 1% lower a year and you see in private. caller: good morning. what is the reason why they do not want to raise the minimum wage? the cost of living is off the charts. and yet, you have people working, making $7 an hour. which is just ridiculous. and i just personally believe that, if corporations want to get rid of unions, because they do not just want to give people a decent wages and decent benefits. there's a greed factor here. i would like to have you

respond. guest: it is one of those great questions. what can we do? one might look at corporations. one side but look at economic spirit certainly, one thing you can do for wages is find a better way to control health- care costs. that is almost a magic bullet that no one has found. the question is, with the health-care law we see in 2010, as it actually affect that? the show premiums are not growing as fast as they once were. whether that will lead to more wages, we do not know yet. host: let us go to oklahoma, cathy. caller: i am a small business owner. we have paid health-insurance premiums since 1985. we are fortunate enough that we get to pay our employer's

premiums. but what bothers me is social security. it will leave people in the position to bargain or negotiate with insurance companies whose best interest is not ours. host: christopher flavelle? guest: bill wiatrowski you are the numbers guy. guest: she is paying for her employees health care premiums. that is a very -- becoming more and more unusual. that you see that employees are required to contribute toward the cost of their healthcare. when we started our survey, it was, and that employees would receive a free health care. especially single coverage. for family coverage they may have to contribute a small

amount. over time, workers are having to contribute towards the cost. over 90% of the workers resurveyed have to make some contribution for family coverage. and the same cost for the individual employee being in the range of $400 a month to $450 a month. it becomes a big factor in whether or not people can afford to have their own health insurance. guest: what they are doing is looking at this law and thinking what does it mean for us? how many people who currently maybe look to their small employer, small business employer for health care will go to these new state exchanges? what will the costs be? in predicting this, it is hard to know what the behavior's might be? what they say i would rather buy coverage there? what they say i want to be with you still? will employers defeat the if

there's a fee that they have to pay. that behavioral question is -- 2014 is on the benefits start. that is when we will see how they will react host: ann in connecticut. caller: when i began working, i took a job for less money because they had better health insurance for myself and my family. i think that is the most important. right now i am on a cancer treatment. i am petrified of the romney- ryan budget. i have read it. they put a cap back on, do away with the health insurance, what will happen to me? i cannot afford without health insurance to pay for my chemo treatments. i would just have to die. i am petrified that they will do away with obamacare. and do away with the caps. and no one will take me on their insurance with my cancer. thank you. guest: a great question.

one of the issues with health reform is, how we deal with people are chronically ill and have very high costs? the loss to the cap as the caller said, it prevents insurers from payments above a certain amount. that is a big deal for people with cancer and things like that. mitt romney hasn't said what he would do if he repealed the law. how you deal with those people is a big question for him. host: we are joined by christopher flavelle and bill wiatrowski. we are looking at wages and benefits. we see here from dls, a graph that shows workers required to share the cost of health benefits, how that is working out your you can see change over time now with 2012. using the percentage of private industry workers required to contribute for family coverage, and the color in the navy, the percentage of private industry

workers required to contribute for single coverage. guest: we have been during the survey for about 30 years. and benefits in general have changed. employees have more responsibility and certainly more cost sharing. you can see this trend in this data entered for family coverage, about 50% of workers in 1985 had to pay the other 50% have the benefits for free. my daughter were to the factory and he always got free health care benefits tiered this is now very uncommon. we say that 90% or so that have family coverage are required to make a payment. depending upon earnings levels, this can be a real hardship for certain families. there really is a change in velocity -- philosophy of the benefits. from being a more paternalistic, this is gonna be something that we are going to give for working our organization, to a

responsibility of individual employees. host: bill wiatrowski, you also look at these bls, and to offers health care benefits in the health-care industry. guest: so, one of the things you know about the private industry is that it is a very wide variation in occupations, types of work, and the workers and a general. we see that about 70 percent of private industry workers are offered health care benefits. then there is quite a bit. those covered by collective bargaining agreement -- now we know that unionization has dropped considerably in the country in recent years. while the percentage is fine, the number of workers covered

has declined. with small establishments more so than larger establishments. small establishments mexican afford to provide health-care benefits. -- small establishments may not feel they can afford to provide health-care benefits. on the about 57% of voters are provided health care benefits. these are those who were offered, not those who take the benefits. some think they cannot afford it, other spouse already has it, because they feel they are invincible. -- industries will be more likely to have benefits. then a service providing companies like health care, hospitals, restaurants, retail stores, areas where you might have more part-time workers or lower income workers. host: as you sure these numbers

from bill wiatrowski, what speaks to you, as people look for jobs and look for coverage, where these numbers significant and important? guest: the question of the recovery is tied in with whether employers can find a way to break this chain of increasing premiums. which they look at as the classic issue of uncertainty. premiums to point out, there is less money for wages and less money for hiring. one of touched on is charging more to the employee. these high-level plans which are increasingly popular, the ship to the notion of insurance. the state of employees, we will help, but it is on you if something happens, q. will there more of the cost of and you have before. the second thing employers are working through is this idea of wellness programs. a benefit that is separate from health care, but tied to it and an important white pith the idea

on one hand as it may be by helping people be more healthy and fit, we can prevent some of these costs. the second issue is that can employers find a way to create incentives, financial incentives for people to stay healthy? we are starting to see on the landscape works. 9% of large companies already have some sort of incentive or penalty for those who do not meet certain health benchmarks. this is uncharted territory. will this bring down costs? for the shift costs to those who cannot do a good job of staying healthy? host: eastern time zone colors, you can reach us at 202-585- 3880. in eastern time zones is 202- 585-3881. george is up next. caller: have a question for both

gentlemen. i was a former plant worker with a union. and i know personally that every time a union, we renegotiated our contracts, we were given a set rate above minimum wage. and i would like to speak -- stop thinking about how to raise minimum wage and level off increases and wages for union workers. because, every time the minimum wage is raised, they automatically get an increase. but the company -- why do not they take more and put it on to their health benefits? every time a minimum wage is raised in a country, everyone that has had a union or some kind of contract ultimately gets an increase which in turn raises the stick across the board for the poor and underadvanced. host: is referring to the

health-care benefits offered. we saw these numbers of union workers have access, nonunion, 67%. that matters when it comes to retirement. retirement numbers are also strong for union workers. we can take a look at that in a moment. in the meantime, bill wiatrowski, is the more of a move to offer pay or to offer benefits? guest: i think as we were saying, there's an offset sometimes. to decide how to spend their compensation dollars. there are only so many dollars they can spend. yet to find ways to offset increased costs. we mention high deductible plans, we are seeing more and more of those plans. it is essentially catastrophic coverage. providing a deductible that might be $5,000. so the plan is not covering it for some of the routine medical expenses. but there might be a help savings account that goes along with that.

along the individual to make the decision as to whether or not you are going to spend this money on a particular benefits. we are definitely seeing decisions being made as to how to spend the total compensation dollars. and small employers are squeezed in the space. we see a larger percentage of smaller employers faugh who have these high deductible plans. we think is something that is more affordable for them. it is an essentially becoming -- retirement is a contribution approach toward the retirement is designed to provide a set amount of money and then make a decision as to how the money is spent. we do not know under the new health care at whether or not that may happen more and more. the data that we collect, we are trying to get information on, are you getting your benefits from your employer? we think that concept will get alcohol muddier as the new health care law comes into

effect -- the new concept will get a local muddier as the new health care law comes into effect. guest: at the center of the discussion, do we start this government-guaranteed benefits as employers starmove into a guaranteed payment. we will pay you x p er year. but the risk ships to people who are wondering if they will have enough to pay their costs. now, somehow become recession has changed. i do not know if mitt romney will win on that and implement it. but the shift in health care has really followed the shift in pensions. host: as promised, here are the numbers on who will offers

retirement benefits. union versus a non-union. smaller companies versus large. and full-time vs part time. bill wiatrowski. guest: retirement benefits -- there has been a major shift. to a 401k plan. the employee has the decision to make onto whether they would like to save money. and decisions along the way about how to invest their funds. at the time of leaving the company or retiring, what in fact to do. to take that money or turn it into an annuity. pension plans, something that was often a golden thing for employees, you have the 30 years, at the end of the 30 years, you'd get a nice benefit based on your leg of service, often based on your earnings. you can see, and the charts, it

says the union population has gotten smaller. nearly all of the union workers have some sort of benefit. or pay for a one k plan. -- 401k plan. were the employee has to make some decision about the benefit and the employer might be matching that benefit. host: bill wiatrowski, with the bls. and christopher flavelle. greg in arkansas. caller: on the insurance cost -- ours has tripled from $600 and now is about 3000.

that is the deductible. as far as a bonus -- well, if a factory worker gets a bonus, they take a least 20% of it. and then get taxed on the bonus at the end of the year when you do your taxes. because you got a bonus. and you know, i do not see it getting any better. you know the cost of living is going up. the food, gas, everything is going up. and as a part of this wellness program you are talking about, you know, they pay the doctors and then they pay somebody to try to tell you how to get better. when they do not even know who you are, they do not know anyone about you. they do not know nothing. it is just an extra person that is getting paid, which is making it more difficult -- that is

what the doctors are for is to take care of you. not some insurance company. you know, to call the shots. and talking about these government layoffs, government people. the congress and the senate ain't done nothing. host: christopher flavelle. guest: huge frustration with the government's inability to fix this. one sort of sweeping change to focus on is the idea of a should health care benefits be covered with employment? the law begins to move away from that. people move to exchanges and health care that way. the question is -- the country is getting older. maybe when you had to your baby boomers retiring, you had an easier time paying for benefits. that coupled with the rising cost of health care means

there's no easy answer. i do not know if any employer has cracked this. the question will be,? does it keep on going, and we see different -- does it keep on going up? does everyone except a little less in benefits? it is one of these areas where no one knows what happens in five or 10 years. but the concerns we have heard from the caller or universal concerns. host: benefits go beyond health care benefits. there are other benefits that bls looked at. here are the percentage of workers that are offered a range of -- the longest from about one-third and long term care insurance and subsidized child- care 9%.

are we seeing a movement in some of these areas? guest: we are seeing some slow increases in these numbers. they are going hand in hand with some of the health care costs. and so on as programs are intended to provide some incentive for people to lose weight and exercise and to be healthy so they are spending less money in health care benefits. we are seeing some of the incentives that chris mention as well. for example, differences and premiums that employers play if there smoker or a nonsmoker. employers are becoming a little more involved and trying to make sure that their employees are not over utilizing the benefits and are becoming healthier. host: let us go to herndon, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i am nervous.

i was a contractor for the government. it was a full-time position. i was denied three times. and then i took a full-time position. it is not that great. to give you an example, the health insurance system is just a mass. it needs an overhaul. i had to do and mri, i did not want to do it for one year. but the second doctor told me to do it. costed $8,000 to do an mri for one hour. they did not care. they said that is the way that it is. this health care pitch from mitt romney and the republican party -- people need coverage. it should be universal.

this is a super power of the world. and we are the most -- member for in terms of quality. -- #four in terms of quality. the government is not looking at the bottom line. the insurance company is looking for the bottom line. host: about who is making the decisions about charges. guest: if fantastic point. the $8,000 mri is the argument for these high deductible plans. putting more of the plan to rest on the patients, there will do what you just did, they call the provider and say, this is a crazy. there's no evidence that that actually succeeds in bringing down costs. the system is not built for the

consumer to go out and fight for lower costs. i think it is appealing to think that if you change a system, you can see these bills are insane. but it is a long way from here to there. the studies on how high premium plans to bring costs a little bit. two-thirds of people using fewer services. that's mri, if you have to pay for more of it, maybe you wouldn't use it. maybe you or relative would miss some serious condition. we do not know if putting more of a risk on the individuals -- caller: this of your writes -- i am getting pooer. and he uses #abtn.

getting back to benefits going up about wages not necessarily going up in quite the same way. guest: that is right. since the recession, wage increases have been low. some of the lowest we have seen both in private industry and state and local government in recent years. benefit costs trends to track with health care costs. but there are other benefit costs year. the fixed cost of medicare, social security, taxes and other benefits are related to wages like 401k. they tend to -- they are a fixed cost to employers. even know health costs are down, we do see benefit costs going higher. good: corrigan's, bill, morning. egon, bill, good morning. caller: it product that i would

buy from my supplier went up, i would talk to raise my praise for my customer. which would raise the price to the public. when i hire somebody, i give them over $9 an hour, it goes up to $10 an hour let us say, i have to raise my prices to my customers, so they raise their prices to their customers. it looks like a mad a circle to me. i do not know where the matter circle is going to stop. i will hang up and see what you guys have to say off. thank you. guest: one thing with the minimum wage, it creates fewer jobs. but if you and all of your competitors in your state or your area also have to raise their wages, there isn't any action will incentive for you to

hire more -- it ships -- the same percentage of low-wage workers. that is why this argument about minimum-wage goes on. host: thank you so much. this view are rights in about her experience -- viewer writes in about her experience. talking about wages and benefits. thanks to both of you. that is all for "washington journal" this morning. we now go to the house of representatives. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

[captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., october 19, 2012. i hereby appoint the honorable steve womack to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, the united

church, washington, d.c. the chaplain: and let us pray. most loving and gracious god, you hold each of us in your covenant of steadfast love, knowing you are sacred, precious and beloved. you are with us today in this house of promise and possibility. bless each member and their staff with the gifts of wisdom and discernment. bless each person to use these gifts with care and compassion. may this nation be knit together with one, honoring our diversity, respecting our differences and holding one another true to the covenant of freedom and justice for all. may we be peaceful, may we be safe, may we be grateful. all this we ask in the presence of and with the power of divine love which sustains and transforms all. amen. the speaker pro tempore:

pursuant to section 3-a of house resolution 788, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentlelady from minnesota, ms. mccollum. ms. mccollum: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 3-b of house resolution 788, the house >> they will be back for legislative business after the election on tuesday, november

16. live coverage of the house always here on c-span. a number of events coming up today. we will take you to florida where joe biden is speaking at a campaign rally. that is live on c-span. new jersey republican governor chris christie is campaigning in virginia today for mitt romney. president obama is also campaigning and the state today. governor romney and paul ryan are in florida. tonight, a texas senate debate for the open seat vacated. that debate live from dallas on c-span. >> with a focus on the

presidential debates this month, c-span is asking students to send a message to the president. in a short video, students will answer this question. for a chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. $50,000 in total prize is available. for complete details and rules cannot go on li go online. >> president obama and mitt romney gave keynote addresses last night at the 67th annual alfred e. smith memorial foundation dinner in new york city. the fund raiser was a chance for each candidate to joke about themselves, their opponent, and the 2012 campaign. president obama appeared with senator john mccain in 2008.

from the waldorf-astoria hotel, this is about 40 minutes. >> thank you. i hope you all enjoy your meal. doctor henry kissinger is up here on the stage. [applause] he told me it is his favorite dinner. we have many distinguished guest tonight. governor cuomo is here. [applause] the governor is working on some material for his 2016 announcement speech. [laughter] i notice he gets closer and

closer to the podium every year. "jaws."k;e [laughter] chuck schumer is here. there was recently a story in the paper about how he has been actively playing matchmaker among his staff. 12 marriages have resulted. it is safe to say that chuck has stopped trying to work across the aisle. he is pushing them down the aisle. [laughter] congratulations, chuck, for getting attention from one of the only sections of the new york times that does not already cover you, the wedding section. [laughter] you hit the trifecta. chris matthews is here. as you know, -- i'm sorry.

he just left. [laughter] the motto is lean forward. if you lean forward while chris is talking, you will probably go deaf. [laughter] and of course, i want to raise my glass to your honor, mayor bloomberg. [laughter] [applause] >> a lot of people criticized the mayor's decision to ban drinks. this is an issue of deep personal significance. a couple of years ago, the mayor almost drowned in a big gulp. [laughter]

how is it going over there? last but not least, we have governor romney and president obama. [applause] you both look so dashing, as you call it, governor, business casual. [laughter] my great-grandfather got into politics for very simple reasons. he liked people. rich, poor, democrat, republican.

al smith was a friend to all. [applause] throughout his public life, he was a champion of the worker, an advocate for the needy. and a plain-spoken voice. as you all know, my great- grandfather was the first catholic nominee for president. and mitt romney, the first mormon nominated for president. [applause] by great-grandfather and mitt romney have other things in common. for example, they both campaign for governor. as democrats. [laughter]

their biggest adversaries were successful businessman. for my great-grandfather, it was herbert hoover. for mitt romney, it was mitt romney. [laughter] it is no secret that governor romney is a very wealthy man. he is also a very generous man. every year, he gives at least 10% of his income to charity. [applause] not so fast. [laughter] the charity is the federal government. [laughter] seriously, i have seen governor

romney's de generosity to his church. i must confess. we invited him here to convert. [laughter] [applause] really, governor, your father was from mexico and you have five kids. are you sure you are not catholic? [applause] mr. president, you are not getting a free pass tonight. we arcs -- we are excited to have you here tonight. almost as excited as we were in 2008. [laughter] although the catholic church does so president obama a. debt of gratitude.

jesus taught us if it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of debt -- of heaven. say what you will about the economy. mr. president, it will be a lot easier for a lot more people to get into heaven. [laughter] [applause] we recognize you have some challenges this year. it is never could when your opponent has produced more sums than you have jobs. [laughter] [applause] i am pretty sure that number is accurate. paul ryan gave it to me. he is such an effective attack

dog, i am worried governor romney might strap him on the roof of a car. [laughter] of course, president obama wishes he could put joe biden on a car, too. [laughter] the amtrak quiet car. [laughter] all kidding aside, one way both got us a ride are makig t -- both are making this a historic election is to have a roman catholic on both sides of the ballot. that is worth applauding. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, we get to hear from a man. i am pleased to present the 2012 republican nominee for

president, governor mitt romney. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you so much. your eminence, cardinal, mr. president, governor, mayor bloomberg, senator, al and ann smith, thank you for your invitation and your warm welcome. i appreciate your friendship very much. thank you. [applause]

al, you are right. a campaign can require a lot of wardrobe changes. cuisines in the morning, suits for a lunch fund raiser, a sport coat for dinner. it is nice to finally relax and wear what we wear around the house. [laughter] [applause] i am glad to join in this tradition. i am pleased the president is here. we were chatting this evening. it was like tuesday night never happened. [laughter] i was hoping the president would bring joe biden along

this evening because he will laugh at anything. [laughter] [applause] this is not a night for serious politics. it's nice to see president obama and the cardinal despite their differences. i am sure the cardinal has no hard feelings and we will get an indication of that to see if the president's wine will turn into water. or if my water turns into wine. [laughter] i am pleased to see the governor, already being talked about to be high office. he may be getting ahead of himself. the man has put in one term as a governor, he has a father who was a governor, and he thinks that was enough to run for

president. [laughter] [applause] we are down to the final months of the president's term. [laughter] [applause] as president obama surveys the waldorf banquet room with everybody in white ties, you have to wonder what he is thinking. so little time, so much to redistribute. [applause] do not be surprised if the president mentions the monthly jobs support where there was a slight improvement in the numbers. he knows how to seize the moment. the already has a compelling new campaign slogan. you are better off now than you were four weeks ago. [applause]

with or without all the dignitaries that are here, the al smith had dinner lives up to its billing. usually when i get invited to dinners like this, i am the designated driver. [laughter] [applause] your kind hospitality tonight gives me a chance to convey my deep and long held respect for the catholic church. i have special admiration for the apostle saint peter, to whom it was set up on this rock i will build my church. the story is all the more inspiring when you consider he has so many skeptics at the time who would say, if you have a church, you did not build that. [laughter] [applause] only 19 days ago until the finish line. the campaign is full of

surprises and the debates are exciting. we had a very fun debate the other night. candy crowley was there. people are curious how we prepare for the debates. here is what i do. first, refrained from out -- refrain from alcohol. [laughter] then find a straw man, and merciless attack. big bird did not see it coming. [laughter] in the spirit of sesame street, the president's remarks tonight are brought to you by a letter "o" and the number $16 trillion. [laughter] [applause] the campaign will be grueling, exhausting, and president obama are each lucky to have one person always in our corners, someone we can lean on, someone

who is a comforting presence. i have my beautiful wife, he has bill clinton. [laughter] [applause] we got a big dose of weeks biden charm. i heard from the federal election commission. from now on, whenever he appears on tv, there is a recording of me afterwards that says, "i am mitt romney, and i approve this message." [laughter] rules of fairness.

i never suggest the press is biased. they have their job to do and i have mine to do. my job is to lay out a positive vision for the future of the country and their job is to make sure nobody finds out about it. [laughter] [applause] let's just say some in the media have a certain way of looking at things. when i suddenly pulled ahead in the major polls, the headlines were, obama is leading from behind. [laughter] i have already seen early reports from tonight's dinner. headline, obama and priced by catholics. romney dodges rich people. [laughter] [applause]

the president has put his own stamp on relations with the church. there have been awkward moments. like when the president pulled pope benedict aside. he said, whatever the problem is, just blame it on john paul ii. [laughter] [applause] the president has found a way to take a sting out of the mandates for the church. they will be in latin. [laughter] we have fundamental unsound principles that guide us. he and i feel the pressures and tensions of a close contest. it would be easy to let a healthy competition give way to the personal and petty. fortunately, we do not carry the burden of disliking each other. the president has some very

fine and gracious moments. our 44th president has many gifts and a beautiful family that would make any man proud. [applause] in our country, you can oppose someone in politics and make a competent case against their politics without any ill will. that is how it is for me. there is more to life and politics. you show this in the work you do. the work goes on day in and day out in this organization. you answer with calmed, and willing hearts. in service for poor and care for the sick.

to help an innocent child who is going to be born. [applause] i do not presume to have all of your support. on a night like this, i will not ask for it. you can be certain that in the great causes of compassion that you come together to embrace, that i stand proudly with you as an ally and friend. god bless you all and god bless the united states of america. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you very much. ladies and gentlemen, there is only one way to introduce our next speaker. the president of united states of america, barack obama. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you so much. thank you. everyone please take a seat or clint eastwood would yell at them. [laughter]

thank you to al, your eminence, governor, senator, mayor bloomberg, all the distinguished guests here. in less than three weeks, voters will decide this incredibly important election. it begs the question, what are we doing here? [laughter] new yorkers also have a big choice to make. you have to decide which one of us you want holding up traffic for the next four years. [laughter] tonight, i am here with a man whose father was a popular governor who could very well be president someday.

i am hoping it is andrew cuomo. [applause] this is the third time governor romney and i have met recently. as some of you have noticed, i have a lot more energy in our second ave. -- second debate. i felt well rested after a nice long that i had during the first debate. -- long nap i had during the first debate. [laughter] [applause] it turns out millions of americans focused on the second debate, who did not focus on the first debate. i happen to be one of them. [laughter] i want to apologize to chris matthews. four years ago, i gave him a hit to the leg. this time, i gave him a stroke. [laughter]

there are a lot of things i learned from that experience. for example, i learned that there are worse off -- worse things that can happen to you on your anniversary than forgetting to buy a gift. [laughter] [applause] when or lose, this is my last political campaign. i am trying to drink it all in. unfortunately, mayor bloomberg will only let me have 16 ounces. [laughter] that is okay. i am still having -- making the most of my time. i went shopping in the stores in midtown. i understand governor romney went shopping for some stores in midtown. [laughter] [applause]

it brought back great memories. some of you know i went to school here in new york. i had a wonderful experience here. [applause] i used to love wafting through central park -- walking through central park, going to yankee stadium. you really did not build that. i hope everybody is aware of that. [laughter] [applause] it has been four years since i was last at the al smith dinner. things have changed. i have heard people say i am not as young as i used to be. where is that golden smile? where is that pep in your step? i say, settle down, joe, i am trying to run a campaign. [laughter] [applause]

he does smile when he says it. tomorrow, it is back to campaigning. the cities across our great country. i hear the same thing everywhere i go. we were hoping to see michelle. [laughter] i have to admit it can be a grind. sometimes it feels like this race has drag on forever. paul ryan assured me we have only been running for two hours and 50 something minutes. [laughter] [applause] the economy is on everybody's minds. i do not have a joke here. i thought it would be useful to remind everybody. [laughter] we are getting to that time where folks are making up their minds.

the other day, i was endorsed. by honey boo boo. that is a big relief. [laughter] tonight is not about the disagreements governor romney and i may have. it is what we have in common, beginning with our unusual names. mitt is his middle name. i wish i could use my middle name. [laughter] [applause] even though we are enjoying ourselves tonight, we are thinking ahead to our final debate on monday. i am hoping governor romney and i will have a chance to answer the question on the minds of millions of americans watching at home. is this happening again? [laughter] monday's debate will be different. the topic is foreign policy.

spoiler alert -- we got bin laden. [laughter] [applause] world affairs are a challenge for every candidate. some of you guys remember after my foreign trip in 2008, i was attacked class as a celebrity because i was so popular with our allies. i am impressed with how well governor romney has avoided that problem. [laughter] [applause] just so everyone knows, in our third debate, we will not spend a whole lot of time interrupting each other. we will also interrupt the moderator just to mix things up. [laughter] finally, let me say i have been doing some thinking. i have decided for our final

debate, i have to go back to the strategy i used to compare -- prepare for the first debate. i am kidding. i want to make you sweat. [laughter] in all seriousness, i could not be more honored to be here this evening. i am honored to be with leaders in both the private and public sectors, particularly the extraordinary work done by the catholic church. [applause] it is written in scripture that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance character, and character, hope. this country has fought through very tough years together. we have come as far as we have mainly because the perseverance and character of ordinary

americans. it says something about who we are as people that at the middle of an election season, opposing candidates can share the same stage. people from all parties come together to support a worthy cause high. [applause] i want to thank governor romney for joining me because i admire him very much as a family man and a loving father and those are two titles that will always matter more than any political ones. [applause] we may have different political perspectives. i am certain we share the hope that the next four will have the same decency and the same willingness to come together for a higher purpose that are on display this evening. may we all in the words of al

smith do our full duty as citizens. god bless you, your family, and the united states of america. thank you very much. [applause] >> we come to the main event. [laughter] we turn to our host for closery remarks and benediction. ladies and gentlemen, the arch bishop of new york. [applause]

>> it does traditionally fall to the host of this evening to call it tonight. thank you everybody for your gracious company this beautiful evening. what a unique honor to welcome and thank president obama and governor and mrs. romney. [applause] our two candidates claim both of your parties, the republicans and democrats, are big, containing extraordinary perverse, even contrary an opposite groups. you two do not have anything over the catholic church.

we have both biden and ryan. [laughter] governor romney, thank you i was hoping the republican canada might be governor christie. i would have looked a lot better sitting next to him. mr. president, i trust you will be able to report to mrs. obama that i ate my vegetables and salads. if she had been first lady when i was growing up in the '50s, i would not be in the shape i am in. [laughter] as many of you may know, i just returned from rome a couple hours ago, where i am burt dissipating in the senate of distance. thanks to the jet, i will be able to return to rome after the conclusion of this evening's meal. [applause] by the way, just before i left

this morning, " bennett to it -- pope benedict the 16 pulled me aside and asked me to deliver a message to both candidates. mr. president, governor romney, do you know what the holy father asked me to tell the two of you? neither do i.. he said it in latin. [laughter] when you think about it, only this dinner could bring together two men of the same colin who disagree on almost everything, both of whom think they are the world's experts on everything, who do not usually even like being in the same room together. roger and chris matthews. it is amazing. [laughter] [applause] the al smith dinner, in

thanking all of you for your presence and support, might i suggest this annual dinner actually shows the united states of america and the catholic church at their best. think about it. here we are, in an atmosphere of civility and humor, posted fittingly by a church which claims joy is the infallible sign of god's presence, men and women, young and old of every ethnic and racial background, democrats, republicans, independents, catholics, protestants, jews, latter-day saints, people of no particular creed, people of wealth, but some folks here as well who barely get by, the guests from westchester and the bronx, staten island, grateful all of us to be people of faith and will americans. loving a country which considers a religious liberty our first and most cherished freedom, convince faith is not

just limited to an hour of sabbath worship, but affects everything we do and dream. [applause] privileged this evening to be in the company of two honorable men, will call to the noble the location of public servants whose love for god and country is to pass -- surpassed only by the love of their own wives and children can to are as happy as i hope they are to be here this evening, probably much rather be home to be with michelle and their families. that speaks volumes. [applause] all of us recall a man of deep catholic faith and patriotism who had a tear in his irish eyes for what we would call the un's of the world, the

unemployed, uninsured, unwanted, unwed mother, the fragile unborn baby in her womb, the undocumented, the unhoused, the unhealthy, the unfed, the under educated. government, al smith believed, should be on the side of these un's. [applause] but a government, he also believed, partnering with family, church, parish, neighborhood, organizations in the community, never intruded or opposing. when all is said and done, it is in god we trust, not in god -- not in politics.

al smith, the happy warrior, and a warrior on behalf of the un's so close to jesus, women of new york who will be declared saints. [applause] so tenderly close to a blessed mother, theresa, who reminded us all to remember the five- figure gospel. as often as you do it one of these, the five-figure gospel, the least of my brethren, you do it to me. god bless -- here is my closing benediction. simple, heartfelt. god bless the memory of al smith, god bless the un's, god bless all of you, our two

candidates, america, and thank god for this great evening. good night, and god bless. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, let's have a warm, rousing ovation for our speakers, our cardinal. [applause]

>> thank you, governor. >> good to see you. >> that was great. >> four good speeches. >> thank you. great. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> the final presidential debate will focus on foreign policy. your phone calls, tweets, all of that beginning at 12:30 p.m. eastern. several live campaign event coming up to date on c-span. we will be in florida where joe biden will be speaking at a campaign rally and it is expected to talk about the economy. new jersey republican governor chris christie is campaigning in virginia today for mitt romney. he will be speaking at a rally in richmond. within the hour, president obama also campaigning in virginia. we will have gov. christie's remarks for you at 4:45 p.m.

eastern here on c-span. >> c-span is asking middle and high school students to send a message to the president as part of this year's student documentary competition. students will answer this question. for a chance to win the grand prize of $5,000, and there is $50,000 in total prize is available. it is open to student grades 6 through 12. >> i had gone to visit a movie senser that wathat was their 1947 that had shown movies from all over. to me, it symbolized the resilience of the country and

the openness of the country despite the violence that people have suffered in pakistan. during one of the protests against a video that insulting the prophet mohammad, during one of those protests, people turned against movie theaters and it burned them. i do not see that as a protest against the west or the united states. you had islamist activists who had not like these movie theaters for decades way before this profit mohammed film, so they grabbed an opportunity to attack and a whip up a bunch of young people and there were teenagers involved.

by argue in that piece they were really attacking was the nature of their own country which perhaps they did not understand. who am i as a foreigner to say what your country is about? i know from having listened to pakistanis themselves, it is an incredibly diverse place. lots of different cultures, lots of different traditions, lot of different ways to be. that movie theaters symbolize pakistan and that is what people burnt. >> more with an author and npr host sunday at 8:00. >> with the foreign policy presidential debate set for monday, at this morning we spoke to a couple of reporters who cover those issues and the state department.

>> we are talking about foreign policy and campaign 2012 with a correspondent with the associated press. thank you for being here. we wanted to start off by talking about libya. president obama was on tv last night with jon stewart talking about the killings in benghazi back in september. [video clip] >> as part of the investigation helping the communication between these divisions, what happened within. i would say even you would admit it was not the optimal response at least to the american people as far as us being on the same page. >> if four americans killed, it is not optimal. we are going to fix it.

what happens during the course of the presidency is that the government is a big operation. at any given time, something screws up. you find out what is broken and you fix it. what ever else i have done throughout the course of my presidency, one thing i have been absolutely clear about is america's security come first and the american people need to know exactly how i make decisions when it comes to war, peace, national security and protecting the americans. they will continue to get that over the next four years of my presidency. host: the president has gotten some criticism for the use of the word "optimal." guest: while president obama is acknowledging there was a screw up, he has not gone into detail

about what that screw up was. the white house did not have a clear communication or whether the screw up -- security was not adequate enough to protect the life of an american ambassador. host: you were in peru this week and you have this story from the associated press. secretary clinton saying i am responsible for security. guest: i think the secretary was absolutely correct to take responsibility for this but the secretary works for the president. when we have a buck stops here moment, that moment is going to be with the president. there was a lot of talk about clinton trying to make the

president look more presidential. when you are the secretary of state and someone asks you about a failure to protect american diplomat abroad, you have to take responsibility. what else can you say? it is the responsibility of the secretary of state to protect diplomats abroad. i think both the president and the secretary of state are correct in taking responsibility. guest: it almost felt as if secretary of state clinton's acknowledgment or taking responsibility was a trial story because hours later obama said i take responsibility. interesting how that played out. host: what did we learn about the candidates? what is the situation in libya show us about their broader

foreign policy philosophy? guest: from the mitt romney camp, it shows they are more interested in being poised to attack than they are trying to explain what they would do differently. they have seized on this as a way it they can exploit, and successfulrly foreign-policy. guest: both sides came out very early on with statements that later proved to be inopportune. mitt romney's comments about the statement from the and the sea in cairo, and then the ministration's's delay in reaching their conclusions that it did. both sides spoke too soon on this. i think it showed the importance of getting your facts straight before you open your mouth.

guest: i also think in terms of the way the politics are being played out before the election that the mitt romney camp found themselves stuck behind the party because lawmakers on capitol hill really can up the volume of their criticism on the administration's handling of this which i do not think benefited the mitt romney camp going into the last election. host: here are the numbers to call. we have started with libya but we will dig into a bunch of foreign-policy areas that the candidates are talking about. bob schieffer, the moderator, has given a sense of what the questions will be. you can watch that debate on c-

span monday at 9:00 p.m. here is what bob schieffer has slated as the main topics or areas of discussion for monday night's debate. america's role in the world. also, afghanistan and pakistan. then red lines -- israel and iran. the new face of terrorism and the rise of china in tomorrows world. do any one of those stick out in your mind? guest: they are all extremely important issues. as we're seeing, all of them are going to play a role in the campaign and they should help differentiate between the candidates if there is really any different. one thing that has become clear i think is that with the exception of some smaller issues, there is not a whole lot of difference between the two or

at least gov. mitt romney has not explained exactly what he would do differently in terms of a place like dealing with a crisis in syria. i think the china issue -- a governor romney has said he will come out stronger on china than president obama. he has said some things about russia. in both those cases, he has tried to differentiate himself from the president. we have not heard the details about how he will act differently. guest: if you look at the details of everything that has come out of the mitt romney camp, at the end of the day his foreign-policy is not going to be all that different from president obama. where they are trying to make their biggest inroads is in

posture and narrative. peace through strength. trying to get it from the ronald reagan playbook. there was an advertisement that ran in 1980 against jimmy carter. you would think it was the mitt romney can complain about the obama administration's weakness on foreign policy. i think what you are going to see in the debate i presume although i do not have full confidence that mitt romney will be able to pull it off but i think he will make that argument no matter what the topic is especially if it is serious in the middle east he will try to say the administration is the first one to have abandoned this idea of peace versus strength. host: let's get to the phones

and hear what you have to say. keith is on the republicans line. good morning. caller: good morning. i am glad to be on c-span with you this morning. my question is not so much in regards to a terrorist attack. to me, it was a military attack or the engagement of military action. a terrorist attack is on a civilian target designed to create fear in the civilian population. this was completely not that. this was an attack against the american sovereignty. that is my problem with it. guest: it was inherently a civilian target. it was not a military target

that these extremists went after so i have to disagree with the caller on that. i think it meets the definition of a terrorist attack however you want to define that. host: tom on our democrats line. caller: this is to both gentlemen. i watched the i watched all 20 debates with the republicans. i am a democrat. my question is with mr. romney. i understand where president obama is. he is not dragging us into any more wars but he is willing to help like in libya and other places. he turned it over to the un, and we lost four americans in libya. my question to mr. romney is, is he talking about actually going

back in iraq, going into syria, getting ready to go to war with iran, in the sense of is he ready to put boots on the ground? is that what he wants to do different than the president? if not, what does he want to do besides rattle the saber? i will take your comments off the air. guest: i think it is a fantastic question, because romney's camp would like certain people in the neoconservative elements of the republican party to believe that in fact, yes, he is ready to pull the trigger on a pre- emptive strike on iran. if you look at what he actually says, and you talk to his senior advisers, whether directly in the campaign or analysts or former officials were out on the periphery, they will not tell you exactly what he wants to do, which leads us to the conclusion that it is largely rhetoric and largely narrative, where he just wants to say that we will be

stronger. i don't think that romney if he gets into the white house will pursue a war-based policy. guest: there is an old saying that foreign policy is like an aircraft carrier. you can change the capt., the captain can change the course, but it takes quite a bit of time. guest: it takes massive world events like 9/11. guest: indeed. what you are seeing from the romney campaign is this attempt to differentiate himself. once he gets elected or gets into office, we will be hard- pressed to see any real significant, at least early on, a real significant changes the way the policy of the united states is going. guest: and unless there is some kind of event like to break out of war in southeast asia -- highly unlikely, but of something unforeseen happens, we don't know what romney would do, because at the end of the

day, romney is really experienced on foreign policy. he is about where obama was four years ago but we don't now. we will have to wait and see what we are going to get. host: let's look at comments that romney made at this tuesday's debate about iran. [video clip] >> look at what is happening in syria, egypt, libya, consider the distance between ourselves and israel, where the president said he would but daylight between us and israel. we have iran four years closer to a nuclear bomb. syria -- not just the treasur -- tragedy of civilians killed, but a strategic planner. president obama began his outreach to the middle east with an apology tour and leading from behind, and this strategy is unraveling before our eyes.

host: matthew lee? guest: despite the comments, is not clear to me, at least not yet, what exactly romney would do differently in syria, for example. he has talked about how i.t. is important for the united states to play a role in deciding who gets lethal assistance, weaponry and ammunition, but that is what the obama administration is already doing. is the government suggesting that the united states should itself go out and actively supply rebels with arms? he seems to suggest now, but if that is the case, that is exactly what the obama administration's policy is right now. i think that for him to be able to say that -- to make a distinction, he will have to be more specific. host: he also talked about israel. guest: in lot of this has come from more than a year of campaigning where governor

romney has tried very hard to show this closeness with israel, and to expose the obama administration for not having that closeness. israel would be america's greatest friend. we cannot sit here and pretend that that has not had to do in some way with fund raising on the campaign trail, and also looking at jewish voters in florida and california and hoping that this message of closeness with israel would result in campaign treasure, campaign funds. host: vice-president joe biden during the vp debate talked about israel and iran. [video clip] >> with regard to the ability of the united states to take action militarily, i.t. has not come -- it is not in my purview to talk about classified information, but we feel confident that we can deal a serious blow to the iranians. no. 2, the israelis and the united states, the military and

intelligence committees are in exactly the same place in terms of how close the iranians are to getting a nuclear weapon. they are a good way away. there is no difference between our view and theirs. when my friend talks about fissile material, and they have to take this highly enriched uranium and get it from 20%, and then they have to have something to put it in theory there is no weapon that the iranians have at this point. both the israelis and we know when we they will start the process of building a weapon. all this bluster i keep hearing, what are they talking about? are you talking about -- what can the president to come to stand before the united nations, tell the whole world, directly communicate to the ayatollah, we will not let them acquire a nuclear weapon, period. unless he is talking about going to war. host: vice-president joe biden

at the vp debate. matthew. guest: again, the vice president brings up the question, what exactly what mitt romney do differently? the obama administration has come as the bush administration before it, pursued very tough sanctions against iran at the u.n. and has succeeded. it has also -- this administration has also imposed a very harsh unilateral sanctions. the unilateral sanctions were passed by congress, but the administration went along with them and has implemented that. we are seeing a very significant deterioration of the iranian economy largely, or at least in part, because of these sanctions. again, as the vice president said, unless he is talking not going to war, it is not exactly clear what it is that mitt romney would do differently. is one thing to say that i would rally the international community and i would get the russians and chinese on board, and it is another thing to be able to do that in real life.

host: matt, independent caller bank. . caller: i am more worried about romney channeling george w. bush and getting us into more wars. just saying it is r hetoric -- i don't know that he will not support more war. he is so close to bibi netanyahu that he will let israel do whatever they want. guest: i think it is a legitimate concern. barack obama and joe biden or an anti-war administration. four years ago they ran on getting the united states and untangled from the very unpopular occupation of iraq, and they have done it.

it is hard to say that they will get tough on iran, even though that everything behind the scenes that matthews says is true appeared to have been phenomenally tough with this global yamembargo of iranian oil trade is still difficult to say that we would do a military strike. i don't think that romney will go much farther. as far as being concerned about it, though, one of the players in romney's for an advisory council is john bolton, and john bolton adamantly supported going into iraq. the catch, though, is that bolton has been kept it very much arms length from romney over the last three or four months. outside of a handful of articles he has written, the only thing that romney really wants to take from boldin is association, to win friends from neoconservative alamance of the party. but also, this message to

america just needs to talk a tougher talk. host: how closely watching the advisers that both candidates have on foreign policy? guest: closely, because if you look at the advisers, they provide a window into what the administration might or might not do if their candidate is elected. mitt romney has surrounded himself with some advisers to lean on the neocon side. john bolton was just mentioned. he certainly is one. as i said, some of these people have taken more of a backseat role now. there have been reports about divisions in the ranks of mitt romney's foreign policy advisers, and i think it will be a struggle for him to manage the hardcore, hard-right neocons

with more moderates in the republican party, people who came from, say, the big dick lugar side -- guest: conservative internationalists, the james baker side of foreign policy. it is okay to carry a big stick, but it is not all about war mongering. the romney campaign has not found a way to get behind that and speak about it confidently. host: good morning, doug. caller: romney seems more enthusiastic about bombing iran under the behest of the israelis. it is a war crime to do that without a united nations security council chapter 7 resolution, and george bush was recently advised not to travel to switzerland because of the laws of universal jurisdiction. i would like to see this question asked at the debate.

guest: it would be an interesting question to hear the responses. i would point out that it is not always a violation of international law to invade or attack a country without a chapter 7 resolution. there is the universal right of self-defense. i would remind the caller that if one country invaded at wor -- it's another, that may be illegal, but the country fighting back is not in violation of anything. host: matthew lee, you recently wrote a piece about how the countries are eager to show close ties with israel. do you expect this to be a big topic on monday night? guest: i think that mitt romney will try to expand on this idea that he brought up in the clip you showed in the last debate, that president obama has tried to put distance between the united states and israel.

it is indisputable that their arguments and divisions between inister netanyahu's policies and those which the obama administration would like to see, but those are not any different than what previous administrations have had. it is u.s. policy regardless of who the president is that is pretty much consistent since the truman administration on israel, and that is the united states is going to stick up on israel and ensure its security in a very dangerous neighborhood. the distance that governor romney is going to try to play, is this idea that prime minister netanyahu's government deserves just the unqualified backing on domestic policy, domestic israeli policy, as well as its policies towards the palestinians. it is correct not just in the

sense that it is factually correct, but the obama administration has been highly critical of the settlements. but let's keep in mind that george w. bush's father, president george h.w. bush, had very much the same differences and went almost a step further and his criticism over the settlement issue. host: independent caller. good morning. caller: i just wanted to make a comment -- hundreds of years of history of this in the middle east. you know, the british and the other european nations kind of at one. divided it up and kind -- at one point kind of divided it up and kind of control it through the occupation. the american policy has always been to support israel. we don't look at each individual nation there as having their own sovereignty, always, and we

don't always support the leaders of these individual nations. palestinian statehood has always been an issue, has been a question for a very long time. to ask one president to give a solution, to give an answer, that is just unfair. this is a 30-year ongoing situation that seems to me in my lifetime started with beirut and the gaza strip in the west bank and all middle eastern countries merged there and fought their wars and america got involved, and that didn't work. it seems to me that the only thing we can do in this situation is to help these countries find are a solutions, find common ground, and understand the middle east is basically a nation to it is not really a bunch of independent countries. they porder each of -- they border each other and share common interests and we have to

find common ground. guest: thank you for the comment. i hasten to say that you either sound like a libertarian or an obama supporter. you brought up palestine. if you look at what has gone on the past four years between the obama white house and the government of israel, you are going to see that the devil is really in the details. barack obama stood up at the united nations two years ago? -- correct me if i'm wrong, matt -- and basically said that the united states could not support palestine achieving recognition at the united nations. this is down into the details of whether or not this white house really stands with israel or not. guest: i would add to that that the president did say that and said that the u.s. would not support palestinian statehood a drive at the u.n. without a peace deal with israel. say thatto

unless they can go back to the negotiating table for a deal with israel, they will not be a state that the united nations. that has been a consistent theme through five, six u.s. administrations. guest: romney gave a speech at the virginia military institute last week, right before the last debate, and said that he would support a two-state solution. this is not very elaborate. it is really broad stroke. it is important to note that while romney talks a big game of being a close ally to israel, he is also embracing this rhetoric that the united states would support two countries, israel and palestine. guest: let's turn to afghanistan and whether there is a difference on how to deal with the ward there. -- war there.

"u.s. forces should remain there until military commanders said the job is done." how is he trying to distance himself from president obama's game plan? guest: i am not sure there is from what you just read any demonstrable difference between what governor romney is saying and what president obama is saying. governor romney has on iraq criticize the administration for withdrawing u.s. ftroops to soon. this is not just the united states here. there is a sovereign independent country, in both cases, iraq and afghanistan, with their own governments, and if they say thank you very much, we know what you hear any more, there's not a whole lot that any administration is going to be able to do about it. again, the administration's plan and that of all of native and now is to get combat troops out by the end of 2014.

it is on clear to me if mitt romney thinks that should be changed from what he has said so far. host: let's look at what romney said in his speech at the vmi. [video clip] >> in afghanistan, i will pursue a real transition to secure eight forces in 2014 by president obama would have you believe that anybody who disagrees with his plans before it afghanistan is going to war. but this would abandon afghanistan to the same extremists who launched the attacks on 9/11. i will weigh the best advice of our military commanders. host: governor romney laying out more of his foreign policy positions. guest: what governor romney said

there at vmi is exactly what the obama administration is saying, and that is their policy. if governor romney thinks differently about how to wind down the war in afghanistan, he did not show up in the commons. guest: i think the argument that the romney camp is making his attack-based trade how did the obama administration telegraph the exit strategy so far out from one is going to take place? by doing that, as soon as the white house said we are definitely getting out in 2014, our european allies within 24 hours said, well, we are going to get out before then. i think that is what romney is trying to hone in on, that if you telegraph it this clearly, our adversaries, our enemies inside afghanistan, specifically the taliban, have no reason to sit down and negotiate with us, because they know we are going to leave no matter what happens.

guest: all this is true, but this does not happen in a vacuum. the united states is in afghanistan with numerous other countries, and it was nato itself -- nato agreed to this idea of a 2014 withdrawal. the united states -- it is not clear to me if governor romney -- if the rest of nato pulls out on schedule, is the united states going to stay there alone? will the afghan government welcomed a u.s. residual force like that? all that is not clear. let's not forget that i.t. is not just the united states that is involved and not just whenever the president and washington says. it is not going to happen just because he says that is what is going to happen. host: his opinion -- let's listen to president obama and his own words talking about

his record on afghanistan from this week's presidential debate. [video clip] >> not everybody agrees with the decision i make, but when it comes to national security, i mean what i say i said i would end the war in iraq, and i did. i said i would go after al qaeda and bin laden. we have bid i said we would transition out of afghanistan and start making sure the afghans are responsible for their own security. that's what i am doing. when it comes to this issue, when i say we are going to find out exactly what happened, everybody will be held accountable, and i am ultimately responsible for what is taking place there, because these are my folks and i am the one who has to greet those coffins when they come home, you know that i mean what i say. s and let's go to the phone hear from the gene in hampstead, maryland on the republicans' line. caller: i have a question about

what i've heard so far from the president this morning, and that is, do either of you gentlemen have anything really positive to say about what you have heard from the romney policies that have emerged during this campaign? thank you. guest: absolutely. i will jump in and said i probably sounded very critical when i describe ronald reagan's 1980 advertisement, but i think we got to look back and remember that at the end of eight years of ronald reagan, the united states played a very big hand in ending the cold war, and that the idea -- this sense that there's a lack of positive narrative and positive leadership coming out of the obama white house is definitely an anchor point for the romney campaign. they are onto something there. my criticism, we're probably came off as being at negative, is that i am still waiting for

romney to tie the knot on that and see whether he can pull it off. i also don't want to take a very direct position, because i am in an objective journalist. guest: i would add to that and say that it is one thing to say that you are going to project leadership, is another thing to actually do it. and be successful at doing it. the reference to ronald reagan and jimmy carter, the ad he ran during the carter presidency -- i don't think anyone will argue that jimmy carter was a phenomenal american president, but let's not forget that he was responsible for one of the biggest successes in diplomacy for the nine states post-world war ii, the peace deal between egypt and israel. although there is a lot to say negative about president jimmy carter and foreign policy -- on foreign policy, perhaps -- iran

would be 1 area -- he was not an abject failure when it came to foreign policy. host: good morning. caller: good morning, libby. when ice first started watching the program this morning and two panelists, i wanted to complement them both, because they were showing a balanced objective is to foreign policy. but my comment to mr. guy is you lost me there, because he cannot play both sides of the fence. mr. lee, thank you for being a dallas, showing the objective. -- being balanced, showing the objective. one of the most disturbing things, why the foreign debate is important to me and i watched it -- i am shaking while i talk right now, because mr. romney

and his rhetoric scares me to the american people don't want any more more war. no one anymore terrorism happening on our home. we do support president obama and the direction he's taking on these wars and how he is handling it. we respect him for that. mr. lee, thank you, sir, thank you so much for showing that balanced there. mr. romney is going to talk us with his rhetoric into maybe not another war, but another incident like 9/11 because he is stirring up the pot with his words. it is insulting, and i am fearful, i'm shaking and sweating right now as we speak about this topic. you guys, knocked it off. the american people want peace, not only on our homeland, but the entire nation -- host: we will leave it there and -- guest: let me defend -- i have

not heard anything from guy here that is overly partisan. you have your own opinion. thank you for the compliment, but i am not sure that a the ross have displayed any --either of us has displayed any bias here. host: you both talked about how until you sit in that chair and get the briefings on what is going on that even the governor does not have access to -- who gets more scrutiny from the media? guest: what is so interesting about foreign policy -- this is an exciting conversation, and matt more years than i, but we have books devoted our journalistic careers to this subject matter, but it doesn't resonate very high with american voters. but on this particular issue, i

think the mainstream american media is probably more critical of romney that it is of obama, whereas on domestic issues, it is the other way for around. entirelym not sure i agree with that, because the presidm -- the president, whoever the president is, the incumbent administration, has a record that can be attacked or copied by the next an assertion coming in. the challenger does not have that record. the incumbent can be open to attack -- guest: can i add something on that? what is really interesting is that it is rare in presidential elections over the past 200 years that the democratic party has really carried the high ground on foreign policy.

it is usually the other way around. the whole situation on foreign policy right now and its relation to politics is a little bit uncomfortable for the mainstream media to understand. the big elephant in the room here that we've not mention is that this administration has kept up ubiquitous extrajudicial drone war in 11 countries across the world, not just the middle east. and also, they got was, bin laden, and i presume that president obama will try to play that up in a very big way on the monday debate. guest: he gave a hint of that last night on, the central, where "spoiler alert -- obama is dead." host: matthew lee of the associated press and guy taylor

of "the washington times." "cia seeking more drones." one of the topics that bob schieffer and ask about on monday night's debate -- guest: and one of the topics that he is unlikely to get much of a response from the president on, and these, because this is a classified program even though it is showing up on the front pages of newspapers. ids true, as guy said, that this administration took a program that george w. bush instituted, it drone strikes, and expanded as the forward was before. that is quite interesting. host: republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, greta. i think these gentlemen are apologists for the obama administration to 80% believe what i believe in, and that is this -- in the libya attack, it

was ashamed that our ambassador is killed by these terrorists. we had enough time to take care of this gentleman and his staff, and it wasn't done. the british left. we were the only ones left. how much time has to go on that we are working to protect them? the other side of the footnote is that real time, and they knew what was happening. they never even sent out an aircraft or a drone or anything to attack these people. and it went down for eight hours? guest: so your solution would have been to flee benghazi? caller: no, we should put a small army in there or something to protect our own sovereignty. you think i'm stupid? guest: no -- host: no one thinks you are stupid. we just want to hear your

opinion. thanks very much. guest: it is just curious to me, that he thinks we should put a small army in there, before then he says, well, the british left, other people pulled out. not clear what he thinks. to put a small army in benghazi to protect what is a very small mission i don't think it's feasible. you would have to do that every single msc around the world heard the caller and 80% of the people who he says are crew with them are willing to pay for small armies at every u.s. mission around to world war of these countries where there are serious threats -- some administration would look at, but i don't see the money being there to do that. guest: with all due respect, we have got to wipe the politics away from this for a minute and ask real questions. whether the administration answers that on monday night or before the election or not, the

questions are why was security so bad at there? we're not talking about an occupation force are sending in u.s. troops. you can make the argument that marines don't guard ever u.s. embassy and is expensive and ridiculous to think they could be deployed all about and the world, but why and a postwar, post revolutionary environment, with security in such a state, that there could be a bomb planted weeks before to go off for this attack and nothing was done? a a very popular, phenomenal ambassador, traveling around the country, somebody as charismatic as he was -- why was security -- is a great question and we have not heard a clear answer. guest: there are definitely legitimate questions to ask about security in libya, both at the embassy in tripoli and at the consulate in benghazi.

what i don't think anyone is suggesting -- maybe i'm wrong and governor romney wants to do this -- is to have a small army deployed at all of these missions. i do think that there are questions that the administration needs to answer. there was an attempt to answer some of them -- the committee a week and a half ago or last week. i don't think the questions were answered there at that hearing -- guest: probably one of the most politically charged hearings of the past four years. on both sides of the aisle, the volume on the politics was so high you cannot really hear what anyone else was saying. guest: certainly, and we are going to have to see how the administration finally answers these questions. host: one of our followers on twitter. bringing it from the same

questions that you gentlemen are asking. new hampshire, independent line. caller: good morning. discussing the foreign policy of president obama, i think we have to go back in little ways. since day one of his administration, he has tried to protect and shield criticism of the muslim people, the radical moslems to attack us -- radical muslims who attacked us. he has fallen back on his early religious training as a muslim and he has tried to help them out. his policy has been one of appeasement and apology. host: does it matter to you that the president is a christian? caller: it matters to me that he is favoring -- there are numerous cases where he has favored the muslim religion.

host: ok, thank you. the president has said he is a christian, to clear up that misconception. how does that play into the political game? guest: the caller might be misinterpreting a push that the president has made, which is to try to restore american relations, or america's relations with the muslim world. without getting into what the president's religion is or not, which i think is a political issue, i don't think that is correct that president obama has tried to appease those who attacked us, on 9/11 in 2001 or this past 9/11 in benghazi but what he has tried to do, and you can argue whether he has been successful or not, is to reach out to moderate muslims and to show them that peaceful,

moderate muslims are willing to coexist with other minorities and that america can be their friend. whether that has been a success or not, that can be argued. but i don't think it is is fair to say that he has tried to appease those who have attacked as. -- us. the drone strikes have increased significantly, and the administration killed osama bin laden. host: sharing an opinion on twitter. one final question for you. we see a new poll out, a story from reuters, ahead of money's foreign policy debate. 47% favor obama and 43% romney when it comes to who would better handle foreign policy. substantial gain by running even though obama still holds this narrow lead. guest: i don't want to read too much into this poll.

what is exciting is that we have a live debate on monday night, and if the polls show anything, it shows that the viewer ship on foreign policy debate, typically down, will hopefully be high and people will be watching and listening and paying attention. we will see which candidate, whether it is president, or governor romney, puts their foot in their mouth more. >> "road to the white house" coverage coming up shortly on c- span. a campaign rally with vice president joe biden is expected to get underway in just about 10 minutes. we will have live coverage when it starts right here on c-span. until then, part of this ,"rning's "washington journal calls and comments from c-span viewers. host: let's look at coverage of the al smith at dinner last night. "switching from jabs to jokes,

president obama and mitt romney set aside an evening between the debates to make fun of themselves and each other in one of the few campaign rituals that brings candidates together on stage. each appeared back-to-back at an annual fund-raiser run by the roman catholic archdiocese of new york. the alfred e. smith memorial foundation dinner, which has hosted presidential candidates since dwight eisenhower in 1952. although they dress formally, the candidates go for laughs." president obama at last night's dinner. [video clip] >> people say, "barack, you are not as young as you used to be. where is that gold and small?" i say, "calm down, joe, i am trying to run a cabinet meeting." [laughter]

tomorrow, it is back to campaigning. i will visit cities and towns across our great country, and i hear the same thing everywhere i go -- "honestly, we were hoping to see michelle." [laughter] i admit, it can be a grind. sometimes it feels like this race has dragged on forever, but paul ryan assured me that we've only been running for two hours 50-something minutes. [laughter] [applause] of course, the economy is on everybody's minds. the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since i took office. i don't have a joke here. i just thought it would be useful to remind everybody. [laughter] host: president obama at last night's dinner. we will look at what governor romney had to say in a few moments. we are asking, what you think of a candidate's sense of humor? how important is it to you?

texas, democratic caller. caller: hi, good morning. i'm glad you got my call. i just want to say that i think it is are great atmosphere that obama and romney have a sense of humor at this time, and to see them go at each other on their debates. it is good for them to kind of a joke at each other while they have a chance before the last debate. i hope that the both of them -- best wishes. i think that we ought to put out prayers for them just trying and doing what they are doing, and they just need to keep up a good job of the sense of humor so they can be elected. host: do you ever think that it goes too far?

caller: as far as -- host: humor? caller: no, i never think it post a far, because that is what this is mostly about. it named what it was going to be beforehand, i don't think it should go too far. both of them are feeling something in their own hearts about it, that it could with them, between them at two, but as far as people are concerned, we know what is going to go on before hand. host: judith is up next caller in bloomington, illinois. we lost that call. let's look at what "the new york times" has to say. "amid a brutal campaign, arrest -- a respite, with the jokes." -- they oftened

seem jarring for how much civil and self-deprecating each other could be in the other's presence." let's listen to governor romney last night at the dinner. [video clip] >> al, you are right, a campaign can require wardrobe changes. bluejeans in the morning, perhaps, suits for the lunch fundraiser, sport coat for dinner but it is nice to finally relax and where what ann and i wear around the house. [laughter] [applause] i am glad to be able to join in this venerable tradition. of course i am pleased that the president is here. we were chatting pleasantly this evening as it tuesday night never happen. [laughter] and i could add to the cardinal. taken in new york's

highest spiritual party to get us back on our best behavior i was hoping that the president would bring joe biden along for the evening, because you will laugh at anything [laughter] host: that is governor romney at last night's dinner. our question is whether a sense of humor matters and a president -- in a presidential candidate. joseph in maryland. caller: i just want to say that you are a great host and i love listening to you every morning. i am on my way to work, and i believe i.t. is important to have a very good sense of humor, but at the same time, to keep in mind that there are serious problems and these are serious times. but you can have some levity, because in the end, as americans, we are always going to try to solve a problem and are always going to work hard to do our best and be our best.

it is always good to have a sense of humor. host: let's look at some comments coming in on facebook. "it doesn't break the tension and give us a break." michael says, "yes, it is part of being likable and seems essential to winning." tom says, "it sometimes helps to create a narrative of your opponent. i remember in the bush v gore debate where bush gave more a nod and invaded his space, and it made it gore look like a weirdo." good morning. caller: good morning. host: what you think of a sense of humor? caller: i think it is important. obama as a pretty wicked sense of humor. i think romney overdid it and went up to the president way too much. that is what i think .

host: was a the tone you heard, the comments? caller: no, i think romney did a pretty good job with some of his jokes, but obama is a hilarious. he just knocked it out of the park. host: did what governor romney have to say humanize him for you? caller: i already see him as a human, so not necessarily. host: on facebook, "neither one was funny because he the one road to their jokes. there are politicians, -- neither one wrote their jokes. they are politicians, not comedians." caller: i watched it twice last night when it came wanted i know they did not write those things for themselves. but i agree with the caller who just called in. governor romney -- i think he

took to many shots -- too many shots at president obama. i think president obama's jokes were, you know -- [indiscernible] host: kansas, and joining us on the democrats' line. caller: good morning. host: how important is umar to you as a candidate? -- humor to you as a candidate? caller: they have both been very, very funny. what i admire about both of them is they both said "god bless america," and that is where america is. we have to have god bless us. host: on twitter -- -- what do you

think, california, democrats' line? sense of humor, does it matter? caller: i really enjoyed it last night. it was good to see that. host: heavy seen the candidates like that before? caller: i am a first-time voter. host: really? caller: and i am going to vote for obama, because i blame congress, i don't blame him. when i was ill, he was there for me. i became terminally ill during the bush administration. nobody helped me until obama got in. i was taken care of. yeah, i am for obama. host: well, you are dealing with heavy issues. as humor go too far? is it appropriate for humor and a serious time in your knife and for the nation? -- life and for the nation?

caller: i think it is. it is all part of life. i think that if we have that humor -- is a lot better than not having it, right? sitting there and patting each other down -- i enjoying a really good one. host: independent line, go ahead. --ler: i'm watching this there's something inside me that wonders, is this all scripted, or are we actually seeing some humanity out of these people? i am skeptical. i know that we are ever really seeing the person there. it is all skip, all part of winning the race -- all scripted, all part of winning the race. it has nothing to do with who they are or what they will do. they are playing a political game.

host: how would you get to the real man? how would you find out who that is an hear from him in a way that you could connect with? caller: i don't think they are wired it that way. they are politicians. their goal is to win. maybe their wives do, but i don't think the public is going to. host: what about when you hear the wives of candidates make jokes at their husbands' expense ? does that add something to it? caller: it does some. they're certainly not exempt from being a politician, but they probably have some other goals in mind than winning the race. host: let's look at a comment on twitter. ap, a recent story looking at

how presidential candidates use humor to connect with voters. "during tough economic times, the punchlines lighten the mood, and when the candidates spoke fun themselves, their opponents, and the odd life of the countless hanchett run for president." sense of humor, does it matter to you? caller: a sense of humor always matters, but it runs a little bit too far, and they take it way too far, in my estimation, when vying for the presidency. leadership should always be seen and respected, and when you have two presidential candidates and making fun of each other, you often wonder what you expect the public to do giving them that time when the person gets into

office, how much respect will they get after they have been caught making fun of each other? one of the things that you see happen more and more with leadership is that it seems like some people disrespect leadership, and a lot of jokes, and i think it comes from what we portrayed publicly of one another. host: what about when candidates put themselves under the microscope and make fun of themselves? caller: i think they do that because they expect people think in their minds that people expect that, but contrary to that, there is a time when you have to be serious, and in such matters of these, is a time for seriousness.

i'm not saying to be all stodgy, but don't make a fun of each other. host: on twitter -- let's listen more to president obama at last night's fundraising dinner. [video clip] >> this is the third time that governor romney and i have met recently. some of you may have noticed that i had a lot more energy in our second debate. [laughter] i was really well rested after the night-long nap ipad in the first debate. -- i had in the first debate. [laughter] [applause] although it turns out millions of americans focused on the second debate who did not focus on the first debate, and i happened to be one of them. [laughter]

i particularly want to apologize to chris matthews. [laughter] four years ago i gave them a thrill up his leg. this time around i gave him a stroke. [laughter] of course there is a lot of things i learned from that experience. for example, i learned that there are worse things that can happen to you on your anniversary then forgetting to buy a gift. [laughter] host: that is president obama at last night's dinner. we are asking if a sense of humor matters and a presidential candidate. edward, floor, democrats. caller: so nice to talk to you, and i appreciate your show. i particularly appreciate cardinal dol andan. when he mentioned the uns, the uninsured, the poor, it was

wonderful and it touched my heart. i love obamas humility. i think he's a smart man. he has done more for the country but he has been held back by the republican congress. the republican congress has done great damage to this country by not allowing obama's programs to go forward. thank you for letting me speak. host: what did you think of governor romney? caller: romney it turns me off. i think he is a false man, he talks out of both sides of his mouth, and i don't trust him. when he was asked a question at the last debate about whether he would be returning jobs to china, and he did not respond to that. he said he would get them to play by the rules, and that does not mean with one of his best

customers, china -- i'm sorry that was missed by obama at the time, because he did not pick it up. i heard it, and i thought, well, romney did not answer the question -- host: did you get a different sense of governor romney last night? you saw him poking fun at himself, joking about the president, the joking about vice-president biden, who got a lot of jabs throughout the night from both men. did that give you a different perspective? caller: no, not at all, that was scripted, as one of your other callers said. i don't trust the man. if people paid attention to what he said in the past and what he's saying now, he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth, and i don't trust him. host: "new york times" -- "the dinner at the waldorf-astoria to benefit catholic charities, one

of the quadrennial proving grounds on the road to the white house, also lived up to its other building -- billing: a respite, however brief, from a campaign that has grown nastier as it has grown closer." the vice president was the butt of a lot of jokes. here is how the "new york times" story opens -- "president obama and mitt romney finally found something they could agree on -- jokes about vice-president joe biden got big laughs." what you think? -- what do you think? caller: it is in the american tradition of having a sense of humor in these difficult times. it goes back to, as you said, the time of president eisenhower.

and it is for a terrific cause. it really does put a spotlight on how wonderful our system of government is, and how the american tradition is, that two candidates who are so intense out on the campaign trail can find a respite here and actually display a sense of humor. i thought they were both terrific. in romney supporter but i am not an obama -- i am a romney supporter but i am not an obama hater. this is not a time to express policy. it is a formal dinner, and yet it is so humorous. it is american tradition, part of the reason we can transfer of everyso peacefully four or every eight years. it is part of the fabric of being an american. a sense of humor. and it is a fabulous thing to have to i thought there were both great, and i enjoyed it thoroughly. . just a stop away from all the

nastiness to make fun of one another. i thought it was great, and i look forward to it every time it occurs. host: thank you for your call. have you heard the candidates like this before? caller: these particular candidates? host: yeah. caller: not really. i know has been a grueling campaign. this is the way they do it. the last one was mccain and obama, and previous to that, bush and gore. it is just amazing to watch. we can make them stop in the midst of such tension and issues and find a sense of humor, even though i.t. has written by someone else. i mean, that doesn't bother me. it is the way they deliver it as well. it is just a lot of fun and it is in the american tradition, it is for a great cause, it is for

a charity what more can you ask for? thank you for broadcasting it. host: thank you for your call. via twitter -- you can see that he uses the hashtag >> only 19 days to go until the finish line t. debates are very excited. we had a very fun debate. people seem to be very curious as to how we prepare for the debates. let me tell you what i do. first refrain for alcohol for 65 years before the debate. second find the biggest available straw man and mersly attack it. big bird didn't even see it coming. and by the way, in the spirit

of sesame streets the president's marks are brought to you by the letter o and the number 16 trillion. [applause] campaigns can be exhausting, president obama and i are each very lucky to have one person always in our corner, someone who we can lean on without whom we wouldn't be able to go on with the day. i have my beautiful wife ann, he has bill clinton. we got a big dose of the biden charm last week in his debate with paul ryan. i'm not sure all that carrying on had the effect joe intended

because afterwards i heard from the federal election commission, from now on there is a recording of me afterwards that says i'm mitt romney and i approval this message. of course rules of fairness have to be enforced because what other safe guard do we have besides the press? host: governor romney at the al smith dinner. it's tradition for them to make jokes at their own expense and poke fun at their rivals and it inspired us to ask you whether or not you think humor is important in a presidential candidate. caller: i went to early vote i think about two days ago and when they did president, they

had candidate name first. what's up with that. i didn't understand that? host: what did they have? caller: they had romney name before they had the president name. host: did that cause you trouble? caller: no why do they want to have him a one-term president. they're always supposed to have the president before the candidate name. they had the candidate before the president, i don't understand that. host: we'll talk about voting and how that plays out. we'll talk about campaign voting. right now we're focused on humor in presidential candidates.

caller: i think it was a fun time, a fun evening. i think it humanized both candidates. i thought romney was funny. i think he tried to score more political points which i thought obama was more in the middle of the road. but i think it's a good thing. it humized both things because it is a grueling debate that these guys have been going through. i am voting for obama because i think he has a more credible plan and i also feel that romney is just too much of a wandering general alty with no meaningful specifics with his five-point plan. it has no specifics. so that concerns me. he doesn't seem to be credible. host: did you feel like you got to know candidate romney more last night? caller: i got to see -- i think

he loves this country, loves his family and loves his god. i never doubted that. he was funny. even though he didn't write it, he delivered it well. but i just thought he tried to score political point. and he's a gotchcha kind of guy. he seems to campaign that way and he did it here. but i thought both of the candidates be well and had a lot of fun with it. i respect them both and they both received each of the criticism and the jokes very well too. host: this remark was on twitter -- some comedians could benefit from more light moments.

i remember watching thinking had he done that before he may have won the election. he came across as the grumpi old man chasing you away from his lawn. does it make a difference in how you think of them? caller: what do you think about sense of humor? caller: i think it's important in everybody and in a presidential candidate simply because all the worry they have in the job to have a sense of humor to lighten things up the stress is important.

they're taking last night way too serious. the whole thing of the dinner was to be a relaxing [ation. the fact that other people wrote for president obama and governor romney made no difference. it was the way it was delivered and it was delivered in good humor, good taste, there was no nasty comments made. and the purpose of the dinner and raising the money and the good humor they both showed was an excellent idea. host: did you see them in a different light after seeing them joke? caller: i thought both of them were good men. humor is not something you've seen from obama because of the

attack ads you've seen and you haven't seen it from mitt romney because he was the brunt of the attack ads. but you can't be a good father and family man if you adopt have a good sense of humor. you have to have a good sense of humor just to raise children. since they both have children, i know they have to have a sense of humor. host: thanks for your call. our next caller from michigan. caller: i thought the humor on both of them was very good. they were polite and not overboard. but the one thing about romney is he's untrustworthy. >> did hearing him joke around

change your feelings about him? caller: not really. i didn't have a feeling about him until i heard the debate on tuesday. he said his big thing is creating jobs in the united states but then on wednesday i saw a tv thing when bain capital is closing down a plant in illinois and sending 200 jobs to china. mitt romney is the shareholder in bain capital so how is he going to create jobs when he's putting people out of work? host: let's here more from last night. let's take a look. >> how many times a week does biden show up in a wet bathing suit to a meeting?

>> i had to put out a presidential directive on that. we had to stop that. >> i have to say though he looks pretty good. >> i don't doubt that. host: that was president obama on the john stewart show. we'll talk about comments made with foreign policy and campaign 2012. but for now we're looking at humor and what role you think it plays in the campaign. what does it do for a candidate? caller: thank you. my comment is that i don't really care for it. i think it just cheapens the issues that are very serious to us people out here surfing and it just strikes me as notter for the rich and the wealthy.

what else do they have to do but laugh at us poor people at our expense. it's just indick cative for our country that doesn't care for one another. host: hi. caller: hello. i am really happy to see this. this is beautiful seeing twa candidates separate whatever they have, their feelings and take it as a joke. that is so beautiful. this is what america is. i love it and i think everyone should love it. there are times to cry, we have time we have to laugh and that is so beautiful, two candidates, the biggest country in the whole world the most beautiful country and we are having fun at the same time. that is so beautiful. i wish all of us were like this. no matter what happen, even if

we fight, even if we laugh, we are still happy. this is the united states. i love it. thank you very much for that. host: jack from florida is up next. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? host: good how are you. caller: i think humor is very important in any aspect of life and it gives a lighter side to anything that might be considered serious down the road. anyway i would like to thank being given this opportunity to express my opinion. and sometimes politicians are like dipers and they have to be changed for the same reason. that's my humor nrt day. i appreciate you putting me on the air. thanks a lot. i hope you have a great day. host: thank you jack. let's take a look at a news story coming from that stailt.

the candidates will r flocking to florida covetting votes. presidential campaigns as polls suggest the race remains tight for the state priced 29 electoral college votes. and or lan do sentinel weighed in for who the board supports for the president of the united states. it's governor mitt romney. sentinel makes endorsements. here is what it says -- mitt romney highlighted these and other hard truths in this week's second debate which and they say they are supporting governor romney. they say however this is the sentinel board. romney is not our ideal

candidate for president. we've been turned off immigration extremists. but romney faces a steep learning curve on foreign policy. but the core of his campaign platform shows he understands resliving the economy and the balance sheet are imperative now, not four years in the future. we get that from a page of or lan do sentinel. a poll shows that president obama is leading in the states of wisconsin and iowa. two battleground states that show romney gains. this is from the wall street journal. it says the l remains in the lead. in the final sprint to election day according to new polls conducted just before and after tuesday's presidential debate. moving on to some other stories

in the news. obama speech boils down to one word, vote. this is from the "new york times." it says no fewer than a half dozen times president obama urged voters to go to the polls. each time he criticized mitt romney drawing boos from the crowd. he replied don't boo, vote. when the crowd chanted vote, vote, vote. president obama replied, all right, you guys are getting it. we will see the candidates one more time debate the issues. that's on monday night. c-span will of course bring that to you live. one more story focused on president obama. this one from the washington post. this one says he's struggling to match the intensity from his campaign. it says they're working hard the candidate is having a hard time closing the deal.

and they reflect on how he did four years ago versus now. last night the candidates took a break from the intensity of the campaign trail to tell some jokes at the al smith dinner. we want to hear what role you think humor plays in giving you insight into a candidate for president. does it matter to you? caller: i think that the humor and it was enjoyable to me. i think it is important even in politics. i enjoyed mr. romney and i enjoyed the president. i think i enjoyed the president more because he took a lot of

shots at himself and mr. romney seemed more political. and it was enjoyable. and several calls back a caller called in and spoke about [indiscernible] he said he had a terminal illness and he couldn't get help under obama care but with obama he's able to get the help he needs for his terminal illness. i hope he's still listening and i want him to know he's [indiscernible] i see how serious this has gotten. and i would love for him to come one day and give a report because i know it's going to be a good report because i'm going to be praying for him. host: let's look at a couple more news stories from the

campaign. the g.o.p. is talking but will the voters tune it out. it looks at how the democrats and republicans are using the dollars they've amassed. how differently the two sides have adapted to court decisions that put campaign finances limits. the republicans are largely following their 2010 script banking on a last minute blitz. democrats have spent more money earlier in the cycle. here is a story about the convention that democrats held in charlotte a couple of months ago. it dez d.n.c. organize nicers broke their pledge to put on their gathering this year without corporate do nations using $5 million dollars from a committee financed by companies such as bank of america. they hoped to avoid taking the corporate money but d.n.c.

chairwoman insisted that they had financed the event without special money just last month. now another story la teen no voters are the key voters in three states. they have flooded into nail salons in las vegas they sit captive in their chairs. supporters of mitt romney are recruiting owners of smull businesses to recruit others. that's looking at latin voters and their role. we're talking about humor this mornings. let's take a listen to another clip at al smith's dinner, governor romney. >> of course we're down to the final months of the president's

term. as president obama survey it is wall doffer bank quit room with everyone in white tie, you have to wonder what he's thinking, so little time, so much to redistribute. and don't be surprised if the president mentions this evening this monthly jobs report where there was a slightly improvement in the numbers. he already has a compelling new campaign slogan, you're better off now than you were four weeks ago. host: democratic caller, welcome. caller: i am a 30 year retired

teacher and i primarily worked with second language learner. and the first thing that i learned was the most effective way to get through the affective filter is through humor. so you can go beyond whatever your situations are. but humor is the best way, songs, host: do you find that applies to grown ups as well as school kids? caller: i've been working every day over at the organization and it's just so important, you know. i actually retired early so i

could [indiscernible] if you don't have a sense of humor, we're all done. we really are. host: let's take a look at the fix in the washington post. obama's 2008 turnout is unlikely to repeat according to a poll. he enjoyed young voters but he isn't likely to win those young voters. it could drop from the level it has been in the past from presidential elections. comedy central looked at what young voters want to hear from a candidate. they did this participated in this study. it says millals state of candidates humor me. they will vote for 50 million votes and comedy is the most

effective way to reach them. that's according to research by comedy central. here are some details about what the survey found. it shows a candidates sense of humor is important in fostering a connection with young people. 62% like it when politicians use their sense of humor. half say politicians need to loosen up and 54% agree the funnier a politician, the more likable he or she is. when the young people were asked if they want to see a candidate being hist or herself, how do they find the real person, 33% said an interview with a comedian could reveal that. that's more than 14% said a live is speech and only 8% said an interview with a news anchor

shows the candidate being himself. republican caller joining us now. caller: you see them in a different light. i thought it was wonderful last night. both of them did a good job but i'm for romney. host: did you see him differently? had you seen him in that way before? caller: no, not really and i just laughed so hard last night. it was really funny. host: host: sheer is a tweet. -- here is a tweet about last night. drk host: an independent caller joining us on the phone.

you're on the program. caller: i am [indiscernible] it is a great country here and i'm in new york looking at last night dinner i think obama did a great job. sense of humor is a great thing. i know people are saying that it's written by other people but he made fun of himself in a lot of things which showed another side of him. on the other hand mitt romney was mostly critical about obama in his sense of humor. he was criticizing, he was more critical. so i think you can tell it was written be someone who didn't have that much ability of sense of humor. but on the other hand obama did a great job and i think he's a great guy. too bad i can't vote.

host: there definitely were some bashes in the jokes last night. caller: i am a political cartoonist in jacksonville trying to -- i just try to get some sense of humor. i'm aggressive political cartoonist, aggressive and even the republicans like the work and most of them will laugh at a joke. because some of things are aggressive toward the republicans because i feel we should be more aggressive toward them. the republicans like the art work but not the jokes. even mitt romney writer was really good. mitt romney didn't laugh -- i didn't see him laugh. doesn't the guy have a sense of humor? i see him as a coldhearted rich

boy. he doesn't know what it's like to be like us. even the president came up on welfare. host: so jokes being pointed at him and how he react social security as important as what they say? caller: yes ronald reagan had a great sense of humor and he will be remembered for that. i do too. host: on twitter we got this remark -- >> more to the white house coverple we're live in florida south of tampa, vice president joe biden will be appearing

shortly. senator bill nelson leading into the room and there is the vice president. ♪ [applause] ♪ >> good afternoon. my name is bar bra and one of my first questions is are you ready and you answered it. i stand with president obama and vice president biden because they represent middle class america. [applause] they are one with us. so when there was a chance to

volunteer with the campaign, i could not say no. everyone has their story and why they're on team obama biden. and mine is one of winning a battle against breast cancer. now i know there are many people in this room can also share that same story. i've been cancer free for ten years but i was worried, always worried that it would eventually return and i would hit my lifetime cap. and that my insurance would no longer cover me. it was really flightening to have that in the back of my mind. i worried what if i relapsed. but because of president obama and vice president biden that day finally arrived where i and millions of americans would no

longer have to fair that unreasonable limit of a lifetime cap and worry that i would go broke just because i got sick again. [applause] so i like -- so i like the name of obama care because to me it just shows that we have a president and vice president who cares about all of us. but mitt romney doesn't believe that. he promises to repeal obamacare on day one. he says heel kill it -- he'll

kill it dead which will let insurance companies deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions and bring back those lifetime limits. we can't let that happen florida, we can't. and the only way to make sure it doesn't is by standing by president obama and vice president biden because they have stood by us. [applause] they've fought for us and now we need to fight for them and vote for them. so are you fired up? [applause] you're ready for joe, okay. please welcome joe. [applause]

hey everybody, how are you? [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you so much. before i begin i want to introduce you to the love of my life and the life of my love. this is my daughter ashley biden. ashley is a social worker and a married lady but my mom was an irish catholic lady and she had all kind of expressions and one was a son is a son until he

gets a wife, a daughter is a daughter all her life. so she took off work a couple of weeks to come down and make sure her dad didn't get in too much trouble. i'm glad to be here with one of my truly good friends. in the united states congress a congress person will stand up and say my good friend from. well, this is my good friend. i want to tell you something about this guy. this guy has got a backbone like a ramrod and he has the most important currency anyone can posses i would argue in life, but clearly in the business he's in. and that is he's a man of his word. whatever he says, he does and i

love him for it. folks before i begin, i want to remind y'all but in florida y'all can vote now. even before early voting starts on the 27th just go to your county supervisor of elections and ask for an absentee ballot and you can fill it out right there and it is done. if you're look around the country at places like iowa i hope it keeps up, because we're winning the early voting. [applause] >> i know no one paid attention but we've now had three debates, only about 70 million people watched it. two between the president and governor and one with me and congressman ryan. and i think that one thing has

come across pretty clear to the american people and this is not hyperbole, we have fundamentally different views on how to move this country forward. it is a fundamentally different value set. these are honorable decent men, they are good father's and good husband's but they have a fundamentally different view of how to go about moving this nation forward. the differences are profound on foreign policy and afghanistan. i said the president and i will leave afghanistan by the end of 2014 period, no ifs or buts. because our job will be done. we have trained 315 afghanistan soldiers already. it is time for them to step up and take responsibility of their own countries and for us to come home as we did in iraq. but governor romney and congressman ryan and made it

clear, their willing to stay. they say that maybe we can leave in 2014. their phrase is it all depends. this shouldn't surprise you because everything with them is it depends, it depends on the moment, it depends on who they're talking to. it depends on in the case of governor romney what day of the week it is. i've never seen a man move on so many fundamental issues over a period of four to six years in my life. another place where the differences could not be more stark as the debate showed between our team and there team is on women's rights. [applause] president obama, as i've said repeatedly, the president and i are committed to one thing and no one should make any mistake about this for real, because

some of you may not like what i'm about to say. but no one should make any mistake that we are committed to our daughter and grand daughters have every single to opportunity to control their lives as my son and grandson without exception, every single one. [applause] you heard the debates. it was made very clear that they do not share that view. they do not believe a woman has the right to control her own body i did. romney and ryan made it clear they're willing to impose their views on the public. it's clear they don't believe in protecting a woman's access to healthcare. they're willing to turn the decisions back to the insurance companies.

if you know check with your daughters out there, check with them. they get charged 50% more than your sons get charged. where pregnancy is literally a preexisting condition. i'm serious. under the obama legislation, that cannot go on. they're not allowed to do that. and folks, after listening to particularly congressman ryan, because it was very stark, the view that he expressed on behalf of he and governor romney, how many of you think after a romney appointed scort four years from now row v. wade will still be the law? on tuesday when the governor was asked a direct question about equal pay for women, he talked about binders.

that was true. if this wasn't so serious, you'd this think i was making this up. he came back and said i have binders full of qualified women. how did he have to go ask for binders to find qualified women? really, it is pretty kind of -- it gives sort of a window into how he thinks about these things. ladies and gentlemen, and he didn't answer the question are women entitled to equal pay for equal work. and i want to tell you something, this isn't just a matter of equity and fairness. i don't want my daughter who graduated with a masters degree, i don't want her doing the same job a man does and somebody telling me she's not entitled to the same exact pay. i don't want to hear that. and by the way, nor does her

husband, nor do your sons in laws and sons who are married because it's about economic power. it's about the impact on families. it's more than an issue of women's rights. it's about economic rights and economic power. so when a woman doesn't get paid equally the samly suffers, your grandchildren surf, your son-in-law suffers sufficient fers. but folks it shouldn't surprise you he didn't answer the question. he wasn't even for the lillie led better act and all that did was say if a woman find out she's been cheated at work in terms of her just compensation, she can sue for just compensation from the moment she finds out. there used to be a law that said if she didn't find it out for the first little bit of

time she lost her right to bring that action. minor change. ryan voted against that in the senate and romney's spokesperson said he would have voted against it were he there as well. talk about being out of touch. and now they're abandonning the core principles of this new republican party. and when i say new republican party, i don't mean that in a dem grating way. this is not your father's republican party. this is not the republicans you grew up with. not the people i work with and my colleague worked with all those years. this is as my younger granddaughter said thrks is a different breed of cat. they're good people but this is not even mitt romney's father republican party. but what have been the core organizing principles of this new republican party.

and they have been championing it and they are spart smart and have a firm view. that is based on two things, massive tax cuts for the very wellingthi because they are the job create tors in these people's views. and significant cuts particularly in entitlements to vital programs out there because that's the only way to get the country in shape, they argue. it's not an illegitimate position to take. i fully disagree with it. but that's been the organizing principle of the republican congress for the last four years. that's been the organizing principle of all the candidates who ran for the nomination in the republican party. and now after the convention, we find out -- no, we didn't mean that. no, there is no $5 trillion tax cut. you heard them say that. and now all of a sudden

congressman ryan says his budget doesn't actually cut vital programs of slow growth. he's changed the whole view. i'm serious, here is what he says now. he says i do not cut those programs, i just slow the growth of those programs. well, that's the same budget that has already passed the house of representatives with every republican but one or two voting for it and the same budget -- i guy has never been accused of being a liberal nute gingrich called right wing social engineering. and all of a sudden that's not their budget anymore. they've already passed it once and now ryan is saying his budget doesn't eliminate the guarantee of medicare, it doesn't eviss rate education, it th it's like romney standing in an unemployment line in florida and turning to the guy and saying i didn't out source

your job, i offshored it. [applause] you guys may remember, you know me, i'm the quiet type. you remember about three months ago i was pointing out "the washington post" pointed out that romney when he was running bain, and by the way honorable company and people. but the point is their job is totally different than the job of a president. their job is to maximize profits but notes th that's not the job of the president. so that's why "the washington post" looking at all the records of bain said that romney running bain was a pioneer in outsourcing. i was making these speeches about that is legitimate business enterprise but it's not the president's job.

the president's job is to create jobs in america, bring jobs back to america, keep jobs in america. that is the president's job. now i don't know if you remember but when i made that first speech, the romney campaign responded and said -- they had some important guy responding and he said the following what vice president biden doesn't understand there is a difference between outsourcing and jouf shoring. tell that to all those folks who don't have a job because the factory picked up and went to the cheapest place with the least regulations they could go helped by governor romney. iv ladies and gentlemen the ment said the day after the debate that romney's plans had become sketchy. i'm reduct nt to correct the

president on anything. but i would respectfully suggest they're not sketchy, their etchy sketchy. you know theas tap let's your kids have. i'd shake that sucker. i'd dial in a new sketch. let's talk for a second about medicare. with medicare they've gone to great pains to tell you how we have cut medicare, have stolen from it and have done all these things you see these adds about $719 billion etc. well ladies and gentlemen, i know there's no woman out here who knows anybody on medicare but some of you guys do. here are the facts and you know them.

the facts are since the president has moved and streamlined the system, people who are approaching the donut hole and only we seniors know what the donut hole is. that prescription place wru have to pick up the total price of your drug cost, their saving $600 a year already. that's happened. now secondly, today if you go for a wellness visit there is no co-pay. if you have a standard exam, whether it's a ma'am gram, no co-pay now. and in the process, we have guaranteed the solvency of the trust fund to the year 2024. so what they tell you is not true. but it's what they don't tell you that's most important. remember sometimes when your kids come in after curfew and

they'd tell you that when they left but they wouldn't tell you the silent part was where they had been, you know what i mean? let's take a look at what they're not telling you. what they're not telling su that their move would eliminate all those things immediately. and this is factual, facts are stubborn things, they matter. if they are elected in january and immediately repeal what we've done with regard to medicare and healthcare, you're premiums will go up $312 a year immediately for those of you on medicare right now. that will happen. medicare trust fund will become insolvent in 2016 if they do away with the savings we put into the system. they don't want to talk to you about the premium support. it's a voucher.

you're going to get this chip in the mail if you are 55 years or younger by the time you get to qualify and everybody will be off of medicare automatically. everybody is off. you can buy back in if you can afford to buy back in or you can buy private insurance with that chip if you can afford. but every study has shown the reason why they're doing is they need to save a lot of money for these tax can you please tell us. the first one of these they passed in the house of representatives was passed overwhelmedly would increase the yearly fee for the same healthcare you're getting now by $6400 a year out of pocket. that's the congressional budget office. that's the referee. the democrats and republicans acknowledge. they went ahead and passed it

any way. romney said he would sign it. then when that got no traction because of guys like bill nelson stopping it in the senate and he realized it was so unpopular, then what happened is they came along with a new program. it's still the same voucher. the voucher is just works a little different. but without going through the detail with you, it's still going to cost seniors tense of thousands of dollars. there are three studies one of which says it would cost somebody 54 years a total of $60,000 more to have the same coverage medicare gives them over their life of medicare. another study came out today and said it was going to in fact, you would have everybody going on medicare if it was in

place now would cost you about $120 a month more than you now pay for the same healthcare you're getting now. that's if it went into effect. that's what the foundation said. this is not joe biden. they found the voucher plan being proposed, more than 90% of people in florida on medicare would have higher premiums. the average premium increase for seniors would be over $200 per month or $2400 a year. this is a pea in a shell game. no matter how you cut it, they're come bind massive tax cuts for the super wealthy is going to cost a lot of seniors out of pocket and it's going to put great pressure on your kids and grandkids. the one thing i have a problem with from our friends on the right end -- and i like

congressman ryan but he talks about we have to save this for my generation. let me tell you something. like a lot of you, when my mom and dad got sick, i had the great honor of being able to take them into my home and care for them. my dad worked you will his whole life and never did anything other than work. my dad when he was in hospice lived with me for his last six months and i convinced my mom to live with me and she wouldn't because when she was my my entire life grew up in a three bedroom home for 19 years we were in that house there was only four years we didn't have a relative living with us needed help which and my mom swore she wasn't going to move in but finally we convinced her to move in. you probably found the same

thing with your moms and dads. the one thing they don't get there is not a son or daughter worth their assault that in mom or dad was in need they wouldn't make sacrifices with their own family their children and themselves to help mom and dad. i remember we used to lie like the devil to my mom who is a smart woman. she had social security and something left from the sale of her home. and we'll tell the druggist whatever the price is tell hirono prescription drug benefit covers it. here is the credit card because you know about us. too much pride. my mother would not have her children pay. when they are cutting beb fits for seniors how is that going to help kids. they're going to go out there and make up the difference if they're worth their salt. and they are, they're from the

families like we all are. it's time to quit hiding the ball. they say they're from the middle class. my dad had an expression. heed say don't tell me what you value, show me your budget and i will tell you what you value. let's take a look at their budget. let's take a look at what they value. on taxes governor romney wants to maintain the tax cut for the top 2%. we want to for the american people. they say we can't give a cut to the middle class unless we take care of the top 1%. the top 2% of the bush tax cut, $800 billion goes to people of $1 million.

$5 billion goes to 120,000 families. you will not see one correction on what i just said to you. it's a fact. 120,000 families they want to continue to be able to get $.5 trillyonl over the next four years. that gives the same people another $250,000 tax cut. they also won't tell you how they're going to pay for it you heard in the debates. because there is no way to pay for it. he says i'm going to cut all those exceptions for the wellingthi guys out there. ladies and gentlemen there are not enough exemptions for the wellingthi guys. the reason why your kids taxes are going to go up $2,000 a year if they have a child is because they have to cut those

tax loopholes like a mortgage deduction for people making less than $150,000 a year. that's why it goes up even if they get a tax cut. it goes up. they say no, it's not true. you heard in the debates the moderator or the president said well governor can you tell me one loophole you're going to eliminate. seriously, think about this. they can't name one. not one will they name because folks it doesn't work. they go on and they cut medicaid by $800 billion over ten years by denying cutting the benefit they give to the states. say you're on your own. that's 19 million people going to be thrown off of medicare. how many of you know someone in a nursing home who first had to sell all of his or her property

to equal fy and the only reason they're there now is because of medicaid. they're going to get kicked out. where are they going to go? these aren't poor folk. these are middle class people who broke their neck their whole lives and the only thing they have is access to that home. ladies and gentlemen, middle class children with disabilities, families are going to lose the benefit. they december meat education and a $2500 tax cut to help kids get into college. they cut pell grants for working class families. instead of signing a pledge as they have including the nominees to a guy name grover there is actually a pledge signed that says we will not raise one penny in taxes even for people who are making

millions of dollars who don't need the tax cut and are not even asking for it. i come from a wellingthi little state of delaware. i found out in my years in the senate wellingthi people are just as patriot as poor people and it's time they step up. instead of signing a pledge to grover they should sign a pledge to the middle class saying we're going to give you a level playing field. that's what we're going to do. ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you what we're going to do. on education we're going to under education and maintain those tax cuts to help your kids get to college, we're going to recruit math and sms teachers so we remain the best in the world. we're going to insist on higher standards. and because we believe as my mother used to say joy children

become what you expect of them. we expect a lot of from our children and they expect a lot from us. second on jobs we're going to create a million new manufacturing jobs, help businesses double their exports. how far give them tax breaks to companies that come home and create jobs here. there are over 600,000 high-tech manufacturing jobs available in america today without the skills available that's why we tied them up with community colleges so you walk out of the community college into a good paying manufacturing job. ladies and gentlemen, on energy we're going to cut it in half. we've already cut it more than half in 16 years. it's oil, clean cole, natural gas, wind, collar, buy fuel and conservation. these guys voted against the

bill that the senator passed and the president pushed which doubles mile ladge on automobiles by 2024 saving $1.7 trillion at the pump. on taxes we're going to -- we've cut taxes $3600 so far for middle class families and we're going to make personal at no time tax tax cut for the middle class and ask the wellingthi to may a little bit more. and we're going >we have already cut $1 trillion in the dead. if the notice, when romney was asked by the moderator, if you could reduce the budget deficit and it required anyone new revenues, he said would you support it? he said under no circumstances.

ladies and gentlemen, as we end this war in afghanistan, that will result over the next 10 years, a savings of $825 billion. we will bring half of that to bring down the debt and the other half to build american roads, american businesses, american schools. [applause] look, it's a basic proposition all about expanding the middle- class. we have to give them some peace of mind. they got crushed by the recession in 2008. romney and ryan plan is all about the same old thing, the governors of the first thing i will do is read the regulations and replace them and let wall street write the rules again. that is literally what he said. he said shred the regulations, do away with the new regulations on those banks. continue these massive tax cuts

which amount to over $2 trillion for people to make $1 million or more. folks, we have seen this movie before. we know how it ends. it ends in a catastrophe for the middle-class. 9 million jobs lost, $16 trillion in lost wealth for middle-class families and watching the equity in your homes -- the price in 2006 was about $240,000 and now averages about $86,000. many of you have been here and planned on that equity in your home in your retirement. he planned on that equity maybe for yourself maybe for your kids. it is up in smoke. tens of thousands of good people in the cities you come from, they did not do a thing wrong. they never missed a mortgage payment and all the sudden they find they had those wacky mortgages and they got

foreclosed on and the value of their houses upside down. they lost tens of thousands in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars. that is how they planned on doing what i did, borrow against that to center kids to college. the plant on that for their retirements of it would not have to depend on their children. this resulted in the great recession of 2008 and we will not go back. we have a different vision. we don't see the american people in terms of makers and takers. that's how they talk about it. in a major speech, ms. brown says 70% of the american people are -- mr. romney said 70% of the american people are takers and 30% are makers. he said people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. the american people should worry about that. he does not even understand who half of america is. there were my mom and dad who

broke their necks are all alike. there are millions of people paying their payroll taxes and property taxes and sales taxes at an effective rate higher than mitt romney paid his federal taxes. ladies and gentlemen, they are the people like some of you may be in this room or a lot of people you know, in fact, all they have is social security and they do not pay tax and should not have to pay tax on it. there's also 68,000 warriors that are trapesing to those got all mountains of afghanistan. i have been in and out of their many times, they are not paying taxes because they should not have to pay taxes. [applause] that 47% are the people who are the heart and soul and spine of america. how many in this room are veterans? we owe you. i think you would agree with me

that this generation, my sons' generation who spent a year in iraq, this generation has been incredible. they have stepped of. 9/11, over 2 million of them have signed up knowing that we would go -- 200,000 have struck on those boats and gone to iraq and afghanistan. we only have one sacred obligation and i think the veterans would agree with me. we have many obligations to our children and the elderly and schools but only one sacred obligation -- that is to equip those we send to war and care for them when they come home. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, we have to honor that sacrifice.

when you go to afghanistan or iraq, one of the most moving things that occurs is the first time i guess my sixth or seventh trip to iraq and a full colonel said to me, mr. vice president, permission to board a fallen angel. that's how they refer to our warriors when they fall in battle, fallen angels. they brought in a flag-draped casket and strapped it to the floor in that c-17 and turned it into a cathedral. all we could think about and it happened more than once was about the family way to get the other end. ladies and gentlemen, every single morning, i checked the

number of dead and wounded as a consequence of these two wars. as of this morning, 6500 fallen angels. 50,010 wounded. many of them, close to 25,000, with loans that will require extensive medical care the rest of their lives. those of you guys and women who were in korea and vietnam, over 50% of the wounds suffered in afghanistan and iraq, if they had been severed in korea or vietnam, they would have been dead but because of the so- called golden hour and triage capabilities today, they are alive but they will need our help the rest of their natural lives. we owe their families and overwhelming debt. must never forget their sacrifice and keep them on her

chair and in our prayers. these are the men and women who really are the backbone of this country. [applause] the american people -- let me conclude by saying to you that the american people are so much better, so much stronger, take so much more responsibility and neither congressman ryan or governor running give them credit for. two candidates for the highest of his and the lad who were more negative about the state of the country, more negative about the prospects of the future, and have less faith and the willingness of the american people to accept responsibility. they talk about -- the phrase that has been interjected in the

last four years -- the culture of dependency. that is to those 47% of people are. i don't recognize the country they are talking about. number i come from, not try live. how could they have such a profound misunderstanding of the american people? ladies and gentlemen, this election is about a lot and it is also about who we are as a country. i've got news for governor romney and congressman ryan, they are dead wrong. america is neither dependent nor are we in decline. period. [applause] i will say to my two colleagues what i'd say to every foreign leader i have had the privilege of meeting with and negotiating with or taking issue with -- gentle man, it is never, never,

never a good bet to bet against the american people. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, we need you. we need your help to win the state of florida if we win the state of florida, this election is over. this election is done. go out there and vote. we need your help. god bless you all and may god protect our troops, thank you. [applause] ♪ [we take care of our own - brice springsteen] bruce springsteen. ♪

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>> florida is a big stake for both candidates. there'll be a rally in daytona beach, florida for the republicans. obama will rally in florida next week. a governor once considered to be a vice-presidential candidate for the republicans, chris christie of new jersey, will be campaigning for met romney in richmond, virginia. we'll have that live for you this afternoon at 4:45 eastern. tonight, a texas and a debate between republican said crews and democrat paul sadler for the open seat vacated by paul -- bailey hutchison. that debate is from dallas live

at 8:00 p.m. eastern. we will bring in some archival presidential debates from past years going back to 2000 for first. george w. bush and john kerry. all that will come up tomorrow here on c-span. >> to be honest with you, i love these debates. these things are great. i think it is interesting that the president still does not have an agenda for a second term. don't you think it is time for him to put together a vision of what he would do in the next four years if he were elected? it's got to come up with that over this week and because there is only one debate left on monday. >> lead 3 cap what we learned last night -- the tax plan does not end up, the jobs plan does not create jobs, his deficit-

reduction plan adds to the deficit. i walk, everybody here has heard of the new deal, you've heard of the fair deal, you've heard of a square deal -- met romney is trying to sell you a sketchy deal. are not buying it. >> watch as mitt romney and president obama me in their final debate. our debate previous starts at 7:00 p.m. eastern filed by the debate at 9:00 in your reaction at 10:30 live on c-span, cspan radio, and on line at c- span.org. >> i use cspan in a business capacity. i love keeping up with hearings. if i try to figure out what happens on capitol hill live, i always used cspan. i can watch it live while

keeping up with my work and i kept -- i felt very current. recently i have covered the technology. i needed to know what was going on i did not want to wait for the coverage a couple of hours later so of course i turned to cspan. cspan >> , created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider. now former united dozens secretary general kofi annan discusses his new book. he looks at his best work at the u.n. and ongoing efforts to establish peace and protect human rights. this is about an hour and a half from the brookings institution in washington. [applause]

>> predetermined not to have any radio or television or newspaper. after six weeks of this, i became very bored. [laughter] i told my wife, let's go get a newspaper. we had barely into the shop when i saw five men in the corner staring at us. one of them broke off and made straight for me and i turned to

my wife and said, we have six weeks to go, and we have blown our cover. by then, the fellow was on top of me and he put his hand out and said morgan freeman. [laughter] may i have an autograph? [laughter] i said sure. i signed freeeman. he was very happy and we kept our of anonymity. -- are anonymity. on a more serious note, i am very happy to be here with you this afternoon. often people ask me why did you decide to write a book? i said i have been fortunate to be working for the united nations at perhaps one of the most crucial times in our history. i lived through many difficult

and exciting events. i felt it would be good for me to write and share my experience and leave some lessons behind. i have tried to do an honest book. i have tried to do an honest book and i have also decided that if i was going to write to this book, i should do it in a way that the average person will also understand. the un, as most of you know, is an organization that has many stories but we cannot tell our stories, not even the successful ones. we have not been very good and it is not very easy to tell a story of the un is difficult because of the way with sometimes describe the un. the un is all about your government and mine but when we describe the u n, it creates a

certain barrier and acts as an alibi for inaction of government. for me, this whole international adventure started in the gulf coast when i was a boy and the struggle for independence began. i came of age with the struggle of ghana'independences at the time. it was fascinating in the sense that as young man growing up and seeing rapid changes around you where suddenly you have a ghanioan minister and head chief of police and seniors in many positions, you grow up believing that change is possible even very fundamental and radical change is possible. i must say that experience marked me throughout my life. i have always felt we should not

accept things because it was done this way. we should challenge and we should question why are we doing it this way. why cannot we change? i think that lesson has served me well. from there, i gained a ford foundation scholarship to study at mcallister college in pennsylvania. i happened to put on layers and layers of clothing to keep warm. i tell my young friends that there was one item i said i would never use, the ear muffs. i thought they were in elegant. i said i would never use them until one morning i went to get something to eat and almost felt like i was losing my ears. the next morning i went and bought the biggest pair i could

find. i walked away with an important lesson. you don't walk into a situation and behave as if you know better than the natives. you have to listen to them. that lesson has stayed with me. i can tell you that. we became independent in 1957 and, of course, we had great expectations for africa. all of us, as young people, felt we would get an education and help develop our continent and make a real difference. of course, it did not go the way we had expected. ghana and malaysia became independent the same year. ghana in march and malaysia in august of 1957. when you look at the two countries today in terms of economic development, we are poles apart. at the time of independence, we have the same national reserves.

economically, we were almost at par. today, the per-capita income of malaysia is about 13 or 14 times that of ghana and the reason in my judgment is the question of leadership. we went through a series of coup d'etats. we went through a series of parents and each government begins fresh and brushes aside what the others had done and set us back to very badly. they moved away from agriculture which was essential for the continent. we have an advantage and now we are returning to our agriculture. today we are good and growing what we don't eat. cocoa, coffee, flowers, and import what we eat and we are trying to repair that. we want to show that we can at least feed ourselves.

of course, i went to study in geneva and joined the world health organization. as a budget officer 50 years ago. at that time, but i was going to do two years and go home. two years had become 50 years. i had decided in the meantime -- i did go on for two years -- i had a constant battle with the leaders of the military so i left again. when i left, i went back to the un and decided the u n is going to be my home. later on, i also convinced myself that i could serve my nation well by serving the international community well. the un became my home. of course, i work for the

organization in various locations. i see many people here, ambassadors and colleagues who worked with me in the middle east, some in egypt, ethiopia, and other parts. i went through various departments and in 1992, i joined the department of peacekeeping. it was a crucial time. it was also a time when the cold war had ended. gorbachev had gone through a glass nest in 1989 and there was a certain excitement in the security council with a sense of optimism that finally we can take all the decisions we have not been able to take because of the cold war.

when you look at the un's record from that period on, apart from the end of the cold war, my predecessor was asked to do a report for the council. that report opened the door for the un to become active in the internal civil war situations. the council approved it but i don't think we had the time nor the well to look at the implications of that switch. it is one thing to be involved in a ceasefire agreement with two countries with well organized arm is another thing to get caught in civil war of situations. whether in somalia, the congo, or elsewhere. it is a different type of mine said with a different set of resources and a different type

of train soldier and the possibility you will face conflict and you may have to fight. there will be greater risks which meant not only should we accept that there would be greater risks but explained it to the population that peacekeeping is not risk-free. each time there is a number of casualties and government pulled out their troops. the first encounter of this was in somalia. when the u.s. plane was shot down and the soldiers were dragged through the streets. the u.s. withdrew its troops. everyone else followed a particularly those from the western countries. this, of course, was happening in 1993-1994 when the world was confronted with rwanda. i covered that completely and the book. the crisis of somalia and the

difficulties we face in rwanda where we were not in a position to help them in their time of need. i'm not sure we could have stopped anything but we may have been able to do more or 800,000 people got killed. of course, there was also bosnia where we lived for the nightmare where 8000 people were marched out and killed. all this for me was a personal journey having gone through somalia, rwanda, bosnia and i kept asking myself, what can the international community due to insure that we stop such tragedies and do not accept these without reacting. the question of use of force in the kosovo crisis came up.

the council did not have to approve it because the countries that were prepared to go in knew that if they went to the council, it may be in the test. -- vetoed. after the action there was an indirect vote which gave than 12 votes, if i recall, that indicated there is a broad support. i was wondering how they can support use of force without security council approval. i made clear there are times for exception, there are times when you have to put forth for the service of peace and kosovo was one of them. there is no way the international community could have sat back and allow them to repeat the tragedy in kosovo.

what justification would we have had? i also had the opportunity of becoming quite involved in the middle east search for peace. for a long time, the secretary general had not been engaged in peace in the middle east between the israelis and palestinians. when i was there, we managed to become engaged with the creation of the quartet and working with governments in the region. i see bruce is here. he was working on that with me. we managed to get the un in vaults and i had hoped that with the creation of the quartet and concentrated action and focused, we would have been able to move the process forward. we came up with a good map. we tried everything but it did not work out the way it was

meant to work out. we are still struggling. a few weeks ago, when i was in geneva, i was told the two-state solution was dead and we should look for a one-state solution. that was quite striking. we also worked with lebanon and israel for the withdrawal of israeli troops from lebanon which i think was quite a courageous move by prime minister barak even though he did not get to those in his quarter. i think it was a bold decision. i certify that israel had withdrawn from lebanon. the other issue in the middle aged where i became involved was between hezbollah and the

israeli government. that was an asymmetrical war which have lessons for the region and everybody. for israel, it was a heavy price to pay. if the best organized and most respected and feared army in the region in the minds of ordinary people cannot defeat hezbollah, where is the strength to? at the time in the confrontation, or hezbollah, survival was a victory. if they survive, they felt they had won. that confrontation had lots of side effects in the region. hezbollah had become very popular. they are not popular today but at the time it was very popular because of that confrontation. i don't want to go into too much and in the book, i'd deal with

the need for people who are working on peace to meet all leaders including dictators and butchers. they often ask how you can meet with so and so. how'd you make a difference? how do you push them if you don't talk to them? we all want to talk to genial friendly people of their not the ones doing the killing. you want to stop the killing, you have to talk to those who are responsible for those kinds of behavior. let me say a word about some of the social issues or the un has been involved and intervened weather in a humanitarian crisis, after a disaster like a tsunami, or the case of a chevy aids or the u.n. had to intervene to try and save lives. that not only set up a global fund to fight hiv aids, malaria

and other diseases and write a check from $200 million, that check came from george bush in washington. he later came up with a program to put up $5 billion per year to fight the disease. that was the first time the world has come together to focus on the disease of that kind. i recalled not only pushing governments for money like the pharmaceutical industry to play its part and reconvened a meeting in amsterdam with the seventh largest pharmaceutical companies asking them to reduce their prices so the poor can afford it. if they have medication that can save lives of the poor cannot have it, it was going to be difficult for them to maintain the intellectual property.

mandela had taken them to court in south africa. i am not a public relations expert but you have to be a real genius to go sue mandela in a south african court. pullback and try to set up a -- set up different. in the end, they changed communications white -- quite drastically. they dropped the cases per year. they also protect mother to child transition. they gave that medication away for free. i know we will have a conversation. let me conclude by saying that

the book deals with a lot of intervention. we set up a high-level panel and steve steadman and bruce are here in the room. they came up with concerns for all of us. listening to economic and social threats, poverty, and the environment. interstate conflicts of and interested conflict, nuclear and biological and chemical weapons, terrorism, and the internationally organized crime. these are all issues the u.n. intervenes with any issues that affect all of us. this intervention is something we should all be prepared to play our role. that is one point. the other point i would want to make is that the international

community as the crucial role to play in building healthy, balanced societies based on rules law. on threety's rely pillars -- stability, peace, respect for rule of law, and human rights. if you do not develop rule of law and human rights, you are building on sand. that is what was noticed in south africa. i'm sure three years ago, i had as to those of you in this room what you think of tunisia, i would have heard a was a great place. -- it was a great place, stable, secure, and economically they are doing well.

this led to the arab spring. it is extremely important that when we are set in government, we don't focus just on security and economic development, we look at the essentials. the other lesson we came away with was something that should not be used as a shield holocaust where governments protect themselves. le responsibility to protect comes on both sides. there is responsibility on the government concerned and on those of us outside the country. we can no longer say it is a general -- is an internal affair. we are compelled to react. it is

not only military intervention. it could be economic and other measures. use of force is the last resort. as we look forward, i think we need to think of the individuals in the nation. we have tended to look at sovereignty as something that belongs to the government. we did not stress a responsibility of the welfare of the people and our responsibility to the people. when you bring in the concerns of the individual, you are looking at a completely different situation. let me leave you with an african -- swahili pro verb -- you cannot bend the of the wind so bended the sale.

-- so bended the sale. - so bend the sail. i will pause and begin our conversation. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you so much for getting us off to a terrific start. very shortly, we will give our friends a chance to interact with you. i'm sure during the course of the conversation, we will want to come back to your final comments about responsibility to

protect the limits of sovereignty and the responsibility of both parties in the context of the very tough mission, one of many toughen bank was missions you took on even after you left the position of secretary general in syria. before we get to that, i noticed that early in your book and reiterated throughout was an emphasis on the significance that the un charter speaks in the voice of the peoples , not the nations of the world. that resonates with your comments here and the stress that you put on development. looking ahead to 2015, what would your advice be to your successors ban ki-moon and others like the executive

secretary and a high-level panel will look at development goals on how to be more effective in bringing resources to the international -- of the international community to bear on those who need health care. >> thank you for that question. i know there is lots of discussion going on about sustainable development. i believed that the millennium development goes court -- identifies the basic need of individuals, the poorest in our societies, and challenges government to try and work with society to fulfill these needs. the needs are so basic, primary education, reducing the number of people who are starving,

clean water -- these are so basic that every government has to try and meet. many governments around the world have made progress -- india, china, brazil and particular have lifted millions of people out of poverty. both brazil and china made the millennium development go as part of their development package and systematically moved it towards it. i believe by 2015, some countries have not -- and there will be many who have not obtained that goal. we should challenge to persevere to provide these basic needs for the project for their people. those who have achieved them, should be challenged to aim higher pluralistic education. if you have universal primary education, you may want to begin to look at second grade education. he may want to look at trade

schools. you could move the people for that way. there were discussions on two of the goals like education and health. this was difficult because of the focus on health, or education, you will be talking about clean water, about mortality. i think the base we have should be maintained. when we were putting together this, there were quite a few issues. we could not include one of the discussions i had with my colleagues. we wondered if we should include migration. we could not include it. there may be a possibility of filling in some gaps. perhaps some issues were not

highlighted. the basic requirement that we have identified, we should encourage governments to meet. >> you mentioned in this connection private change which has been a theme of much that you have said over the years, particularly in recent years. as you travel around, is it your sense that there is a growing constituency for making climate change more of a priority both of individual nations and the un itself? thinkortunately, i don't we're making them much progress. i don't think political leaders are very excited about this. the population and the people have to play a role. they really have to organize and

push environmental and climate change higher up. this is one of those situations where i believe the leaders are failing to lead. we're the leaders failed to lead, the people can make -- can make them fall. i have seen some surprising reactions and encouragement, evidence of some people that would you -- you would not expect would be worried about that. i walked in east africa in tanzania to zero weeks ago. i had been in 18 months earlier. we went to look at a project and with an illiterate farmer saying

he has a swished cross. he is now using this cropp because the rains do not come the semi i have been told. they are too short. if i don't get friday, i will lose my crop. on the ground, the farmers are telling us. but we in the cities and other political parlance, we need to give them the support and adaptation techniques and their resilience they need to move forward. >> i will permit myself one more question and then i will hope that hands will go up around the room and we'll get a chance to bring you in on the

conversation. this is a question about what is happening in europe. specifically, the european project. the reason i've been thinking about it in context of your book is that europe has made arguably more progress than any other region in the world. in advancing the cause of transnational governments continue to expect the suburbs a. that experiment is in some trouble now. how concerned are you about it not just for the people of europe for but for the presidential. >> i pray and hope that europe survives. i think it will survive but it is worried.

even though the commission. * the collective interest is also the national interest. it not -- yet has not always been correctly absolved. i saw the great problem was a problem for greece and not of europe and there were not disciplined enough and others were trying very hard and it became spain and portugal and was treated as a peripheral issue. in my experience, the periphery has the ability to dominate the center the periphery always dominated the center and we see it now in europe. it has accepted from the beginning that we are in this together and we have a common goal i think europe were a bit

ahead of the curve. made lots of move is that they're always behind the curve. about seven years ago, i had a press conference in brussels. people were complaining about all sorts of things of europe. irate call reminding them that there are many regions which would love that you problem. europe is a wonderful example. even african states along the european lines which is not realistic -- they started with six countries have dejectedly in better condition than 92 victory

at albert in countries. -- in better condition than the african countries. if the european union were to fail, it would be a real disaster for the way we manage. they are saying the european union has made such a contribution and managed to bring europe together after two devastating wars and ned evans's started a union or a pro -- or a product that makes war unthinkable in europe. they occurred and this is arab

>> the ambassador from norway is here and i'm sure he will include that in his report. >> that's not why i said that. >> the director of our foreign policy program, question? >> thank you, secretary general, for your leadership at the united nations. i would like to ask you about syria. here's a case of the international community unable to support the principle responsibilities to protect 30,000 syrians who have died already. the number is going up and it looks like there is no hope.

you made an ever to lead the international community in this regard. what can you tell us from that experience and what hopes to you have that things can change? >> thank you for that question. the serious situation is very complex. i am one of those who believe military intervention may make the problem worse. i believe that further militarization could make the situation up worse. we're almost in a sectarian war which could spread and we see a conflict that is spreading beyond the region. i have said in the past that

syria will not implodes but will and exploded beyond its borders. we often focus on the shia and the sunnis yet there is a whole group of other minorities from the christians to the jews in syria to the assyrians and others who are also caught in the middle. apart from these groups, this is a movement, a grass-roots political movement, but those people's political voices demand democracy and they have been squeezed out. we're focused on the military. my own view is that we should have pursued the line we agreed to in geneva on june 3.

the foreign ministers came together of the permanent five, with the foreign ministers of qatar, kuwait, and iraq -- we agreed that the way forward was political settlement and public transition. that transition man to the transitional government would assume executive powers which implies that the government has to go out. we went on to say you need to maintain the security forces so that they can ensure security and hopefully contain and protect the chemical and biological weapons. government inch -- institutions should insure that each group will be looked after. in other w